Sentences with phrase «using orbiting bodies»

Using orbiting bodies to show relativistic effects is not new; observations of the planet Mercury in the 19th century showed that its movements deviated from what Isaac Newton's theory of gravity predicted.

Not exact matches

«It can be retargeted to some interesting bodies, using lunar gravity - assist maneuvers,» said Robert Farquhar, a leading U.S. expert on orbital mechanics and author of the new book: «Fifty Years on the Space Frontier: Halo Orbits, Comets, Asteroids, and More.»

Some candidates can be checked further using another technique that looks for «wobbles» in the star caused by the gravitational tug of an orbiting body, but Kepler 452 b is too distant and small for that.

A concept called Comet Hitchhiker, developed at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, puts forth a new way to get into orbit and land on comets and asteroids, using the kinetic energy — the energy of motion — of these small bodies.

Astronomers also use NIRC2 to map surface features of solar system bodies, detect planets orbiting other stars, and study detailed morphology of distant galaxies.

However, many others argue that only planemos that directly orbit stars should qualify as planets, preferring to use the terms «planetary body,» «planetary mass object» or «planemo» for similar free - floating objects (as well as planet - size moons).

Similarly, one can use perturbation theory to analyze orbits of bodies around the Earth starting with the approximation that the Earth is a perfect sphere, and then correcting for the various bulges and such; the usefulness of the method doesn't depend on whether the Earth EVER was a perfect sphere, but only on whether the sphere is a sufficiently good approximation that the correction terms are mathematically well - behaved.