Asri-unix.707 net.space utcsrgv!utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!C70:sri-unix!Tavares.WFSO@MIT-Multics Sat Feb 6 16:28:33 1982 Horseshoe Orbits All you space whizzes, don't get on me, I know I'm ignorant. But this is the second time I've heard horseshoe orbits explained in this fashion. What puzzles me is the explanation that "the lower one is attracted by the higher one ahead of it, making it go faster and therefore into a higher orbit." As was mentioned several times during the Skylab "re-entry," higher orbits are SLOWER, not faster. If the moon thus accelareted doesn't immediately fly into space, it must have to do with some interaction whereby the other moon, now lower (and slower) pulls it back. This sounds weird. It would be more likely that the moons are really orbiting each other, and the "horseshoe" effect is an optical illusion-- a cycloid-like figure, perhaps, traced out solely because both these moons are orbiting something larger in the meanwhile. Is this what is actually happening? ----------------------------------------------------------------- gopher://quux.org/ conversion by John Goerzen of http://communication.ucsd.edu/A-News/ This Usenet Oldnews Archive article may be copied and distributed freely, provided: 1. There is no money collected for the text(s) of the articles. 2. The following notice remains appended to each copy: The Usenet Oldnews Archive: Compilation Copyright (C) 1981, 1996 Bruce Jones, Henry Spencer, David Wiseman.