Non Elpitical Orbits

[Alex Brentnall]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3753_Cruithne

Came across the 2nd discovered moon of earth on QI today, wondered if any of the non-elliptical orbits had been implemented in ED as shown in the gifs below.

I expect not but would be happy if I'm wrong...

Edit: Actually highly likely these are in Elite since it's actually a normal orbit just in a 1:1 orbital resonance with earth. Guess you do learn something everyday...

 

[xondk]

There are circular and elliptical orbits, the orbit you link is elliptical?

 

[Alex Brentnall]

Yeah my bad. I looked at the bean shaped orbit from the perspective of earth and messed up (I'm tired). - This is what i was trying to convey in the edit

I was just thinking the orbit lines on Elite all seem more or less circular, never seen a highly eccentric orbit.

 

[Allitnil]

Don't treat QI as gospel

From that Wiki page, (a) it is clearly not a moon of Earth since it in no sense orbits it, (b) it is essentially in an elliptical orbit of the Sun (it doesn't orbit the Earth so how its orbit might appear from here is meaningless; all orbits are slightly non-elliptical due to interactions with other bodies) and (c) at just 5km diameter it is way below the smallest body represented in ED.

 

[xondk]

Yeah my bad. I looked at the bean shaped orbit from the perspective of earth and messed up (I'm tired). - This is what i was trying to convey in the edit

I was just thinking the orbit lines on Elite all seem more or less circular, never seen a highly eccentric orbit.

I've seen a good bit of circular and elliptical orbits...and some that would end up on direct collisions?

 

[Ziljan]

One of the reasons that Pluto lost its planet status is that it failed to meet the following requirement:

-it must have cleared out its orbit of other debris

Pluto's orbit crosses other planets and is also shared by other smaller objects. So since the Earth failed to clear out its orbit of the competition, does this mean that Earth's status as a planet is in danger? Lol.

 

[Alex Brentnall]

Wow, totally got science thrown at me on this thread and I have no idea how to respond. Just imagine a guy with that "deer in headlights" look.

Yeah I know QI isn't gospel but they are generally more or less accurate..


Ok, let me tentatively push some more internet in here:
http://imgur.com/nLYhPoY

Is this stuff in Elite (yes I know exoplanets are not but the orbital principle). Eccentricity for most objects in Elite seems to be more or less =0 (circular-ish) whereas the example above is probably 0.9 or more <-totally guesswork.

<Edited numbers, nobody saw that>

 

[Ian Doncaster]

LTT 1582 1 (aka HD 20782 b) is listed as eccentricity 0.97 in the system map.

 

[iain666]

does this mean that Earth's status as a planet is in danger? Lol.

Nah, it'll be saved by special (anthropic) pleading

- - - - - Additional Content Posted / Auto Merge - - - - -

I've seen a good bit of circular and elliptical orbits...and some that would end up on direct collisions?

They're not really collision courses, it just sometimes looks like that when the orbital line for small planet A goes through star B - but that's because the barycentre of the two bodies is so much closer to the centre of B that it's edge always overlaps the orbit of A. By the time A gets to that point B will be at the other side and the orbit will be clear for A to keep chasing it round and round the same circle...