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Orbital decay is a gradual decrease of the distance between two orbiting bodies at their closest approach (the periapsis) over many orbital periods. These orbiting bodies can be a planet and its satellite , a star and any object orbiting it, or components of any binary system .
[1] [2] Simplified General Perturbations (SGP) models apply to near earth objects with an orbital period of less than 225 minutes. Simplified Deep Space Perturbations (SDP) models apply to objects with an orbital period greater than 225 minutes, which corresponds to an altitude of 5,877.5 km, assuming a circular orbit. [3]
The first indirect evidence for the existence of gravitational waves came in 1974 from the observed orbital decay of the Hulse–Taylor binary pulsar, which matched the decay predicted by general relativity as energy is lost to gravitational radiation.
The orbital period is decreasing at 2.373 × 10 −11 seconds per second giving a characteristic timescale of 210,000 years. [1] This decay is mostly due to the emission of gravitational waves, however 7% of the decay could be due to tidal losses. [1] The decay is predicted to go for 130,000 years when the orbital period should reach 5 minutes.
On January 12, 2001, a PAM-D module re-entered the atmosphere after a "catastrophic orbital decay". [3] The PAM-D stage, which had been used to launch the GPS satellite 2A-11 in 1993, crashed in the sparsely populated Saudi Arabian desert, where it was positively identified.
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[2] [10] [11] [12] The ratio of observed to predicted rate of orbital decay is calculated to be 0.997 ± 0.002. [12] The total power of the gravitational waves emitted by this system presently is calculated to be 7.35 × 10 24 watts. For comparison, this is 1.9% of the power radiated in light by the Sun.
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