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Newton proposed that the orbits of planets about the Sun are largely elliptical because the Sun's gravitation is dominant; to first approximation, the presence of the other planets can be ignored. By analogy, the elliptical orbit of the Moon about the Earth was dominated by the Earth's gravity; to first approximation, the Sun's gravity and ...
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Most of the planets orbit the Sun very nearly in the same plane in which Earth orbits, the ecliptic. Five planets (Earth included) lined up along the ecliptic in July 2010, illustrating how the planets orbit the Sun in nearly the same plane. Photo taken at sunset, looking west over Surakarta, Java, Indonesia.
Despite being correct in saying that the planets revolved around the Sun, Copernicus was incorrect in defining their orbits. Introducing physical explanations for movement in space beyond just geometry, Kepler correctly defined the orbit of planets as follows: [1] [2] [5]: 53–54 The planetary orbit is not a circle with epicycles, but an ellipse.
Typically the Earth will circle the Sun in one minute, while the other planets will complete an orbit in time periods proportional to their actual motion. Thus Venus, which takes 224.7 days to orbit the Sun, will take 37 seconds to complete an orbit on an orrery, and Jupiter will take 11 minutes, 52 seconds.
This animation is 100 times faster than the inner planet animation. The planets and other large objects in orbit around the Sun lie near the plane of Earth's orbit, known as the ecliptic. Smaller icy objects such as comets frequently orbit at significantly greater angles to this plane.
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Outer Wilds is set in a planetary system consisting of a sun orbited by a number of celestial bodies: the Hourglass Twins, a pair of planets orbiting each other with sand flowing from one to the other; Timber Hearth, a forested Earth-like planet that is the homeworld of the four-eyed Hearthian species; the Attlerock, a small rocky moon orbiting Timber Hearth; Brittle Hollow, a hollow planet ...