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In the Solar System, many of the asteroid-sized moons have retrograde orbits, whereas all the large moons except Triton (the largest of Neptune's moons) have prograde orbits. [13] The particles in Saturn's Phoebe ring are thought to have a retrograde orbit because they originate from the irregular moon Phoebe.
The inclination and semi-major axis are represented on the Y and X-axis, respectively. The satellites with inclinations below 90° are prograde, those above 90° are retrograde. The X-axis is labeled in terms of Saturn's Hill radius. The Gallic group is a dynamical grouping of the prograde irregular satellites of Saturn following similar orbits.
Retrograde orbits are far more common (83%) than prograde orbits. No satellites are known with orbital inclinations higher than 60° (or smaller than 130° for retrograde satellites); moreover, apart from Nereid, no irregular moon has inclination less than 26°, and inclinations greater than 170° are only found in Saturn's system.
The orbits of Solar System planets are nearly circular. Compared to many other systems, they have smaller orbital eccentricity. [70] Although there are attempts to explain it partly with a bias in the radial-velocity detection method and partly with long interactions of a quite high number of planets, the exact causes remain undetermined. [70] [74]
In the Solar System, all planets, comets, and asteroids are in such orbits, as are many artificial satellites and pieces of space debris. Moons by contrast are not in a heliocentric orbit but rather orbit their parent object. Geocentric orbit: An orbit around the planet Earth, such as that of the Moon or of artificial satellites.
The new discovery increases the moons orbiting the "jewel of our solar system" to 82, surpassing Jupiter. Skip to main content. Sign in. Mail. 24/7 Help. For premium support please call: ...
In 1966, Peter Goldreich published a classic paper on the evolution of the Moon's orbit and on the orbits of other moons in the Solar System. [8] He showed that, for each planet, there is a distance such that moons closer to the planet than that distance maintain an almost constant orbital inclination with respect to the planet's equator (with ...
The more distant planets retrograde more frequently, as they do not move as much in their orbits while Earth completes an orbit itself. The retrograde motion of a hypothetical extremely distant (and nearly non-moving) planet would take place during a half-year, with the planet's apparent yearly motion being reduced to a parallax ellipse.