Retrograde motion in the context of "Distant minor planet"

Play Trivia Questions online!

or

Skip to study material about Retrograde motion in the context of "Distant minor planet"




⭐ Core Definition: Retrograde motion

Retrograde motion in astronomy is, in general, orbital or rotational motion of an object in the direction opposite the rotation of its primary, that is, the central object (right figure). It may also describe other motions such as precession or nutation of an object's rotational axis. Prograde or direct motion is more normal motion in the same direction as the primary rotates. However, "retrograde" and "prograde" can also refer to an object other than the primary if so described. The direction of rotation is determined by an inertial frame of reference, such as distant fixed stars.

In the Solar System, the orbits around the Sun of all planets and dwarf planets and most small Solar System bodies, except many comets and few distant objects, are prograde. They orbit around the Sun in the same direction as the sun rotates about its axis, which is counterclockwise when observed from above the Sun's north pole. Except for Venus and Uranus, planetary rotations around their axis are also prograde. Most natural satellites have prograde orbits around their planets. Prograde satellites of Uranus orbit in the direction Uranus rotates, which is retrograde to the Sun. Nearly all regular satellites are tidally locked and thus have prograde rotation. Retrograde satellites are generally small and distant from their planets, except Neptune's satellite Triton, which is large and close. All retrograde satellites are thought to have formed separately before being captured by their planets.

↓ Menu

In this Dossier

Retrograde motion in the context of Hyperbolic comet

This is a list of parabolic and hyperbolic comets in the Solar System. Many of these comets may come from the Oort cloud, or perhaps even have interstellar origin. The Oort Cloud is not gravitationally attracted enough to the Sun to form into a fairly thin disk, like the inner Solar System. Thus, comets originating from the Oort Cloud can come from roughly any orientation (inclination to the ecliptic), and many even have a retrograde orbit. By definition, a hyperbolic orbit means that the comet will only travel through the Solar System once, with the Sun acting as a gravitational slingshot, sending the comet hurtling out of the Solar System entirely unless its eccentricity is otherwise changed. Comets orbiting in this way still originate from the Solar System, however. Typically comets in the Oort Cloud are thought to have roughly circular orbits around the Sun, but their orbital velocity is so slow that they may easily be perturbed by passing stars and the galactic tide. Astronomers have been discovering weakly hyperbolic comets that were perturbed out of the Oort Cloud since the mid-1800s.

Prior to finding a well-determined orbit for comets, the JPL Small-Body Database and the Minor Planet Center list comet orbits as having an assumed eccentricity of 1.0. (This is the eccentricity of a parabolic trajectory; hyperbolics will be those with eccentricity greater than 1.0.) In the list below, a number of comets discovered by the SOHO space telescope have assumed eccentricities of exactly 1.0, because most orbits are based on only an insufficient observation arc of several hours or minutes. The SOHO satellite observes the corona of the Sun and the area around it, and as a result often observes sungrazing comets, including the Kreutz sungrazers.

↑ Return to Menu

Retrograde motion in the context of Moons of Saturn

There are 274 known moons of the planet Saturn, the most of any planet in the Solar System. Saturn's moons are diverse in size, ranging from tiny moonlets to Titan, which is larger than the planet Mercury. Three of these moons possess particularly notable features: Titan, Saturn's largest moon (and the second largest moon in the Solar System), has a nitrogen-rich, Earth-like atmosphere and a landscape featuring river networks and hydrocarbon lakes, Enceladus emits jets of ice from its south-polar region and is covered in a deep layer of snow, and Iapetus has contrasting black and white hemispheres as well as an extensive ridge of equatorial mountains which are among the tallest in the solar system.

Twenty-four of the known moons are regular satellites; they have prograde orbits not greatly inclined to Saturn's equatorial plane (except Iapetus, which has a prograde but highly inclined orbit). They include the seven major satellites, four small moons that exist in a trojan orbit with larger moons, and five that act as shepherd moons, of which two are mutually co-orbital. At least two tiny moons orbit inside of Saturn's B and G rings. The relatively large Hyperion is locked in an orbital resonance with Titan. The remaining regular moons orbit near the outer edges of the dense A Ring and the narrow F Ring, and between the major moons Mimas and Enceladus. The regular satellites are traditionally named after Titans and Titanesses or other figures associated with the mythological Saturn.

↑ Return to Menu