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It may also refer to the time it takes a satellite orbiting a planet or moon to complete one orbit. For celestial objects in general, the orbital period is determined by a 360° revolution of one body around its primary, e.g. Earth around the Sun. Periods in astronomy are expressed in units of time, usually hours, days, or years.
It takes more than 725 days to complete one orbit around Saturn, and it does so at an average distance of 15,576,000 kilometres (9,678,000 mi). [5] An orbital period of just over two years is fast for an irregular satellite of Saturn, and Skathi completes an orbit faster than any other named retrograde moon of Saturn except Phoebe .
Enceladus is currently in a 2:1 mean-motion orbital resonance with Dione, completing two orbits around Saturn for every one orbit completed by Dione. [ 6 ] This resonance maintains Enceladus's orbital eccentricity (0.0047), which is known as a forced eccentricity.
The Moon's orbit is inclined by several degrees relative to Saturn's, so occultations will only occur when Saturn is near one of the points in the sky where the two planes intersect (both the length of Saturn's year and the 18.6-Earth-year nodal precession period of the Moon's orbit influence the periodicity).
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The planetary orbit is not a circle with epicycles, but an ellipse. The Sun is not at the center but at a focal point of the elliptical orbit. Neither the linear speed nor the angular speed of the planet in the orbit is constant, but the area speed (closely linked historically with the concept of angular momentum) is constant.
If you could somehow make it through all of that, then a blistering hot core made of iron and nickel awaits you at the planet’s center—along with a surprise, as scientists have yet to discover ...
27.321661 days [7] (equal to sidereal orbital period due to spin-orbit locking, a sidereal lunar month) 27 d 7 h 43 m 11.5 s: 29.530588 days [7] (equal to synodic orbital period, due to spin-orbit locking, a synodic lunar month) none (due to spin-orbit locking) Mars: 1.02595675 days [3] 1 d 0 h 37 m 22.663 s: 1.02749125 [8] days: Ceres: 0.37809 ...