It’s not enough to point a rocket at the Sun and ignite the engines.
Articles on Orbital mechanics
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Textbooks often show Earth’s orbit around the Sun as an almost egg-shaped ellipse. The real story is very different.
Not all lunar eclipses are alike. An astronomer explains the science behind the slight dimming of the Moon on May 5, 2023.
Hypervelocity stars were discovered only 15 years ago and are the closest things in existence to real shooting stars. They travel at millions of miles per hour, so fast that they can escape from galaxies.
Cheap, affordable space travel would be revolutionary. Chances are, when it comes, it won’t rely on the brute force approach of rockets.
Top contributors
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Postdoctoral Fellow in Aeromechanics, The University of Texas at Austin
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Director of the Abrams Planetarium, Michigan State University
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Honorary Senior Lecturer, School of Mathematics and Physics & UQ College, The University of Queensland
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Academic Faculty in Physics & Astronomy, Georgia State University
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Associate Professor in Astronomy, Monash University