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The semi-minor axis of an ellipse runs from the center of the ellipse (a point halfway between and on the line running between the foci) to the edge of the ellipse. The semi-minor axis is half of the minor axis. The minor axis is the longest line segment perpendicular to the major axis that connects two points on the ellipse's edge. The semi ...
An ellipse (red) obtained as the intersection of a cone with an inclined plane. Ellipse: notations Ellipses: examples with increasing eccentricity. In mathematics, an ellipse is a plane curve surrounding two focal points, such that for all points on the curve, the sum of the two distances to the focal points is a constant.
The center of the ellipse is point O, and the focus is point F. Consider the ellipse with equation given by: + =, where a is the semi-major axis and b is the semi-minor axis. For a point on the ellipse, P = P(x, y), representing the position of an orbiting body in an elliptical orbit, the eccentric anomaly is the angle E in the
For example, on a triaxial ellipsoid, the meridional eccentricity is that of the ellipse formed by a section containing both the longest and the shortest axes (one of which will be the polar axis), and the equatorial eccentricity is the eccentricity of the ellipse formed by a section through the centre, perpendicular to the polar axis (i.e. in ...
as the parameter t varies from 0 to 2 π. Here (X c, Y c) is the center of the ellipse, and φ is the angle between the x-axis and the major axis of the ellipse. Both parameterizations may be made rational by using the tangent half-angle formula and setting =.
The prolate spheroidal coordinates are produced by rotating the elliptic coordinates about the -axis, i.e., the axis connecting the foci, whereas the oblate spheroidal coordinates are produced by rotating the elliptic coordinates about the -axis, i.e., the axis separating the foci.
A pencil of confocal ellipses and hyperbolas is specified by choice of linear eccentricity c (the x-coordinate of one focus) and can be parametrized by the semi-major axis a (the x-coordinate of the intersection of a specific conic in the pencil and the x-axis). When 0 < a < c the conic is a hyperbola; when c < a the conic is an ellipse.
In an ellipse with major axis 2a and minor axis 2b, the vertices on the major axis have the smallest radius of curvature of any points, =; and the vertices on the minor axis have the largest radius of curvature of any points, R = a 2 / b .