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When viewed from the north celestial pole (that is, from the approximate direction of the star Polaris) the Moon orbits Earth anticlockwise and Earth orbits the Sun anticlockwise, and the Moon and Earth rotate on their own axes anticlockwise. The right-hand rule can be used to indicate the direction of the angular velocity. If the thumb of the ...
The orange moon is in a retrograde orbit. If formed in the gravity field of a planet as the planet is forming, a moon will orbit the planet in the same direction as the planet is rotating and is a regular moon. If an object is formed elsewhere and later captured into orbit by a planet's gravity, it can be captured into either a retrograde or ...
The inclination of the moon's orbit is shown relative to the Ecliptic Plane. The Solar System traces out a sinusoidal path in its orbit around the galactic center. Using Galactic North as the initial frame of reference, the Earth and Sun rotate counterclockwise, and the Earth revolves in a counterclockwise direction around the Sun.
It passed within 6,000 kilometres (3,200 nmi; 3,700 mi) of the Moon's surface, but did not achieve lunar orbit. [11] Luna 3 , launched on October 4, 1959, was the first robotic spacecraft to complete a circumlunar free return trajectory , still not a lunar orbit, but a figure-8 trajectory which swung around the far side of the Moon and returned ...
The percentage columns show the distance from the orbit compared to the semimajor axis. E.g. for the Moon, L 1 is 326 400 km from Earth's center, which is 84.9% of the Earth–Moon distance or 15.1% "in front of" (Earthwards from) the Moon; L 2 is located 448 900 km from Earth's center, which is 116.8% of the Earth–Moon distance or 16.8% ...
Another type of lunar orbit precession is that of the plane of the Moon's orbit. The period of the lunar nodal precession is defined as the time it takes the ascending node to move through 360° relative to the vernal equinox (autumnal equinox in the Southern Hemisphere). It is about 18.6 years and the direction of motion is westward, i.e., in ...
Every 18.6 years, the angle between the Moon's orbit and Earth's equator reaches a maximum of 28°36′, the sum of Earth's equatorial tilt (23°27′) and the Moon's orbital inclination (5°09′) to the ecliptic. This is called major lunar standstill. Around this time, the Moon's declination will vary from −28°36′ to +28°36 ...
Solar perturbation vectors (arrows) analogous to LS at many positions of the Moon in its orbit around the Earth. Constructions like those in Newton's diagram can be repeated for many different positions of the Moon in its orbit. For each position, the result is a perturbation vector like LS1 or LS2 in the second diagram.