Orbital Eccentricity Puns

4 planets in the solar system (excluding the Earth) have noticeable seasons: Mars, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. Which one of them has the lowest orbital eccentricity that varies the least overtime?

Over hundreds of thousands of years, the eccentricity of the Earth's orbit varies from nearly 0.0034 to almost 0.058 as a result of gravitational attractions among the planets. How low is Neptune's minimal eccentricity, and how high is it's maximal?

What causes the variation in orbital eccentricities between different planets in our solar system? Why do Mercury and Pluto have the most eccentric orbits? Wouldn't one expect the eccentricity to be a function of the distance of a planet to the sun? Or perhaps a function of the size of the planet and thus its gravitation pull on the sun? Looking at the various eccentricities, it doesn't seem to be that simple: ( https://www.astronomynotes.com/tables/tablesb.htm ).

I know that in the elliptical orbit, the sun is located at one focus point, but what determines the other? I guess mainly my question boils down to: what are the variables determining planetary eccentricity and how do they interact to cause varying eccentricities amongst the planetary orbits?

I’ve been reading about Milankovitch cycles and I was wondering how much a planet with slightly more eccentric orbit and faster axial precession would differ from our world, and how it would affect life there. Is there a work of fiction that has something like this? I’m new to worldbuilding and I love how much there is to explore so far.

I think if there were a landmass that stretched from near the northern poles to the southern tropics it would set up a reason for periodic migration to and from the north and south regions. If the continents are more disconnected then it might necessitate regular island-hopping and extremely adaptable cultures.

https://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi?sstr=2019Q4

This has to be the most hyperbolic object that’s ever been discovered, and it’s not even close. For reference, anything with an eccentricity above 1 is on an escape orbit.

Couldn't find this information easily elsewhere. Got kinda interested.

I'm thinking about Milankovitch cycles and my understanding is that its effects on Earth's climate and glaciation is not due to changes in total solar energy, but due to the distribution of that energy throughout the seasons.

My question is theoretical: does the total solar energy reaching earth remain constant at all eccentricities? If we ramped up the eccentricity to 95% and Earth traveled much further away, and much closer to the sun in its orbit, does the math work out to give it the same total energy?

Okay, this is my first time posting on Reddit, so bear with me. I'm creating a world with almost no axial tilt, but it has an orbital eccentricity so it still has seasons. I want to know how large an eccentricity has to be to make a difference in the color of the star the planet is orbiting while still being habitable to humans. It doesn't have to be a huge difference, just enough so people can tell it's slightly more red or slightly more yellow. Also, Scishow space has a great video on axial tilts, so you should check that out if you're interested and if there is already a post like this it would be great if you could link me to it.

I'm tired of searching so asking here. I actually may have come across it but just didn't recognize the math to work it out. Wish I had KSP to make me more interested in math back in High School!

Anyways as the title says, I would like to be able to calculate the average orbital speed for my current orbit, not assuming it's circular.

I am trying to teach myself astrodynamics, and am sure that i am missing something simple. Here’s the problem:

A satellite is observed to have an altitude of 0.16 Earth radii, a speed of 13.44 km/s and a true anomaly of π/2. Find the eccentricity of the orbit.

I can find the orbital parameter (its just 1.16 earth radii), but am struggling to find the eccentricity. I am looking for pointers on what my next step should be.

In this video the youtuber picks a semi-major axis, 0.69 AU, the average distance between the planet and star.

The orbit is not a perfect circle, and has an eccentricity of 0.03 degrees.

Looking at the formulas he plugs into that graphing program, I can't seem to figure out where he got 0.689689^2 from. I see he put in 0.02 but said 0.03, probably just a typo.

Then in the second example, he says the eccentricity is ramped up to 0.75, but I see 0.5175 in the program. Am I missing something big? I can't seem to follow along.

If somebody could please break down the maths so I can better follow along, or point me to a nice learning resource online, I'd really appreciate it.

Recently I have begun working on a concept in which my terrestrial planet would gain eccentricity to the point that it's apoapsis exits the Goldilocks Zone. (I haven't worked out how this will happen yet but just stick with me.) What would the possible outcomes for this planet be? I currently am of the opinion that it would generate a hyper-cold season across the planet during apogee, and then return to a normal state of seasons. Likely the apoapsis wouldn't be that far removed from the Goldilocks Zone, but the idea of a "Hyper-Winter" intrigues me. -Thanks

Will Mars face extreme seasonal differences? Is this potentially threatening for human explorers?

Apparently the axial tilt of the earth away from the sun during winter and toward the sun during summer effects the temperature to a much greater extent than the distance between the earth and the sun. Why is this so? If the earth is 3 million miles closer to the sun at perihelion in January than it is at aphelion in July, why would that not cause the planet to heat up more than simply being tilted away and thus being exposed to the suns radiation a little less? I understand the topographic reasons for temperature variation; the southern hemisphere has a lot more water which kind of acts like a heat sink. Since this is the case, does that mean that if the axial tilt was closer to 0 would the difference in temperature between perihelion and aphelion be greater? Or is a distance of 3 million miles just not relevant when talking about solar radiation's diminishing power? This article didn't explain it very well and it's the only one I could find. (http://cseligman.com/text/planets/orbiteffect.htm)

And the semimajor axis is still 1 AU.

What would be the maximum parameters of such an orbit, assuming F9 ASDS recovery with reasonable margin?

Doing a study on calculating the incident solar radiation flux when the Earth is at perihelion and aphelion. Does anyone know any good educational sites or videos on learning how to perform these calculations?

Im trying to get science from the Geiger-Muller counter and I always end up in an orbit below the required eccentricity for it to work. I know what orbit eccentricity is, and I've looked at how to calculate it, but I'm not great at maths and my attempts at calculating a required Ap and Pe (using Ap and Pe radius with semi-major axis) don't end up with their expected eccentricity value when I reach that orbit - eccentricity is always below 0.04 which is below the requirement for the experiment.

Is there something like a website or program where I can give it something like an eccentricity number and the SMA and it gives the required Ap and Pe for that orbit? Or I give it Ap, Pe and SMA and it tells me the eccentricity number for that orbit?

I have been trying to teach myself astrodynamics for a couple of years now, as time and motivation permit, to answer this question and because of kerbal space program.

Here is the full question: How many degrees of longitude will a satellite cross with respect to the surface, if the satellite is in an eccentric equatorial synchronous orbit (not a stationary orbit)?

I am less interested in the actual answer than i am in the process.

I wanted to make a calander for my world, where the eccentric orbit made winter much longer than summer, but there was a lot of math involved, so I made this tool some people might find useful:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1pJ2QAC5Ibg1UH47P3wN0iQwlNDnVGFgWOkBOE7BUa10/edit?usp=sharing

Just make a copy of this and enter numbers into the green cells, and the red cells are your answers. The numbers already in the green cells represent the approximate values of Earth.

Assuming all other values equal, (star mass, planetary mass, orbital period, average distance from the star, etc.)

I'm building a fantasy setting in which the world has a ring and no moon. The inhabitants I'll be following are nomadic/transhumance pastoralists who migrate between a grassy plateau to graze their livestock in the warmer months, and cities built into the walls of a canyon in the winter. There are floating islands in the canyon that seasonally rise as the weather gets warmer, and sink as the weather gets cooler. These islands are made of the same material as the ring.

I understand planetary rings cast a shadow on the planet, and with axial tilt, this can make seasons more extreme, because the angle of the rings would block sunlight from reaching the planet at certain latitudes in the winter, and reflect sunlight in the summer. Figuring out which latitudes would be shadowed at which times of the year sounds complicated, and I haven't yet found a resource that already has, so I'd like to explore instead what the effect would be if there was no axial tilt.

Would the ring's shadow fall directly on the equator throughout the year?

Would the ring still be visible at higher latitudes, even without axial tilt?

I still want this planet to have seasons, and giving it a more eccentric orbit seems like the way to go.

Could anyone advise me on how much eccentricity a planet would need to see seasons relatively similar to Earth?

I am trying to teach myself astrodynamics, and am sure that i am missing something simple. Here’s the problem: A satellite is observed to have an altitude of 0.16 Earth radii, a speed of 13.44 km/s and a true anomaly of π/2. Find the eccentricity of the orbit.

I can find the orbital parameter (its just 1.16 earth radii), but am struggling to find the eccentricity. I am looking for pointers on what my next step should be.