Prince George’s Community College General Physics I Simpson & Simpson

Lagrange Points
In any two-body system (the Sun-Earth system, for example), there are five points called Lagrange points
(or libration points) where the net force on a body at that point would be zero. For example, the Sun-Earth
Lagrange points are (see Figure 54.2):

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1. The L1 point is between the Sun and the Earth.

3. The L3 point is also on the Sun-Earth line, but on the other side of the Sun.

4. The L4 point forms an equilateral triangle with the Sun and Earth, and leads the Earth.

5. The L5 point, like L4, forms an equilateral triangle with the Sun and Earth, but trails the Earth.
There is a similar set of five Lagrange points for the Earth-Moon system: the Earth-Moon L 1 point is
between the Earth and Moon, etc. One distinguishes between these two sets by referring to them as the
“Sun-Earth Lagrange points” and the “Earth-Moon Lagrange points.”
The Lagrange points L1, L2, and L3 are unstable: a body placed at any of those points would experience
zero net force, but if it were moved slightly away from the Lagrange point it would continue to move
farther away. Lagrange points points L4 and L5 are both stable: if a body placed at either of these points
were moved slightly away from the Lagrange point, the forces present would tend to push it back toward
the Lagrange point.
Although Lagrange points L1, L2, and L3 are unstable, spacecraft are often placed at these (Sun-Earth)
positions in so-called halo orbits, where the various forces present cause them to move in closed “orbits”
around the Lagrange point.
A number of asteroids called Trojan asteroids have accumulated at the Sun-Jupiter L4 and L5 Lagrange
points.1 One asteroid (called 2010 TK7) has recently been discovered at the Sun-Earth L 4 point.
The Rings of Saturn
If you look at the planet Saturn through a telescope (Fig. 54.3), you’ll see it surrounded by a prominent set
of rings. Although the rings look solid, they are actually composed of a vast number of chunks of ice or
ice- covered rock, ranging in size from small grains to chunks the size of buildings. It was shown by the
Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell (following Laplace) that Saturn’s rings cannot be solid. For one
thing, if the rings were solid, Maxwell showed that their orbit would be unstable and they would eventually
crash onto Saturn’s surface.
For another thing, tidal forces would tear the rings apart. According to the vis viva equation (Eq.
54.27), for a circular orbit, the velocity v of a body in orbit decreases with increasing distance from the
/ by v r —1/2. But if the rings were solid, they would rotate as a solid body,=
planet obeying v / rω, so v
r — the velocity would increase with increasing distance. The orbital velocity can’t both increase and
decrease with distance, so the result would be a large stress on the rings that would tear them apart.
In general, it has been shown that no body that is held together by gravity can avoid being torn apart if
it orbits a planet with an orbital radius inside the so-called Roche limit, which is given by
r = 2.44Rp p
p
r ,
p
3

where Rp is the radius of the planet, pp is its density, and pb is the density of the orbiting body.
The rings of Saturn are also extremely thin—maybe only 100 yards or so thick. Why are Saturn’s rings
so thin? It has to do with the ring particles colliding with each other. Ring particles that are high above or
below the rings are in a highly inclined orbit, and have more energy than ring particles that are closer to the
ring plane. When those particles collide with other particles, some of their energy is lost, so causing them
to move to lower-energy orbits closer to the ring plane. Over time, the ring particles (especially the larger
ones)

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Figure 54.2: The Sun-Earth Lagrange points. The Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) space-
craft is shown orbiting the L2 Lagrange point in a halo orbit. (Credit: NASA.)

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Figure 54.3: Saturn and its rings, as seen by the Cassini spacecraft. (Credit: NASA.)

tend to flatten themselves into a thin plane, as we see today. This is the general picture, but the details are
still being worked out.

Hyperbolic Orbits
Suppose we wish to calculate the position of a body that is in a hyperbolic orbit (e > 1), as is the case
with some comets in orbit around the Sun. The procedure is the same as outlined in Section 54.7, except for
Equations (54.8) through (54.10).
For hyperbolic orbits, in place of Kepler’s equation (Eq. (54.8)), we use the hyperbolic Kepler’s equation:

M = e sinh F — F,

where M is the mean anomaly (in radians), and F is a variable that takes the place of the eccentric anomaly.
As with the elliptical Kepler’s equation, the hyperbolic version cannot be solved for F in closed form;
instead we must rely on some numerical method like Newton’s method to solve for F . Once we have found
F , we solve for the true anomaly f using this replacement for Eq. (54.9):
r
f e+ 1 F
tan = tanh .
2 e— 1 2
Finally, the radial distance from the Sun to the body is found by this replacement for Eq. (54.10):

r = a(e cosh F — 1),

where for a hyperbola a is the distance from the center of the hyperbola to either vertex. The rest of position
calculation is the same as described in Section 54.7 for elliptical orbits.

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 Prince George’s Community College General Physics I Simpson & Simpson
Parabolic Orbits
Suppose we wish to calculate the position of a body that is in a parabolic or near-parabolic orbit (e≈ 1), as
is the case with some comets in orbit around the Sun. The procedure is the same as outlined in Section
except for Equations (54.6) through (54.10).
For parabolic orbits, in place of the semi-major axis of the ellipse a, we use the perihelion distance q,
and in place of the epoch time we use the time of perihelion passage Tp. Then the true anomaly f at time t
is given by Barker’s equation,
s
f 1 f GM
tan 2 +3 tan3 2 = 2q (t —
p T )
3

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Astrodynamics

Astrodynamics is a field closely related to celestial mechanics, except that it deals only with man-made
orbits of spacecraft, rather than the orbits of natural astronomical objects. Astrodynamicists design
spacecraft orbits to optimize time or energy, and to also fall within the constraints of the mission. For
example, during the Apollo missions to the Moon in the 1960s and 1970s, the spacecraft orbits were
designed to land at low- latitude locations on the Moon’s surface, with the constraint that the landing
location had to be on the near side of the Moon, while the day side is in daylight.

Circular Orbits
As a simple example, suppose we wish to place a spacecraft of mass m into a circular orbit around the
Earth. If the orbit radius is r, then the potential energy U of the spacecraft (with U = 0 at r = ∞) is
M˚m
Uc = —G ,
r
where G is Newton’s gravitational constant and M˚ is the mass of the Earth. The kinetic energy of
the spacecraft is
1 2
kc = mv .
2
Here the orbit velocity v at orbital radius r is found by setting the centripetal force mv 2/r equal to the
gravitational force GM˚m/r2:
mv2
GM˚m
=
r
r2
so, solving for v,
r
GM˚
vc= .
r

Substituting this result into Eq. (55.2), we have an expression for the kinetic energy k in terms of the orbit
radius r:

k = G M˚
m
2r

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From Eqs. (55.1) and (55.5), we find the total orbit energy E is

M˚
Ec = Uc + kc = m .
—G
2r
This is an important result, since total energy is conserved. Another important result is the angular
momentum of the spacecraft, since that’s also conserved. The angular momentum of the spacecraft in a
circular orbit is L = mvr; using Eq. (55.4), we have

L=
p
m GM˚r.
Launch Velocity
Suppose we wish to launch a spacecraft from the surface of the Earth into a circular orbit of radius r, using
only a single blast of the engines on the ground and coasting the rest of the way. The initial velocity with
which the spacecraft is launched is called the launch velocity, and can be found using the conservation of
energy:

E=U +k
M ˚m 1 2
= —G + mv
r 2
and so solving for v gives the launch velocity vL:
s
E M˚
vL = 2 +
G m r

In real life, however, there are a number of complications that require an analysis more complex that this:
• Spacecraft are not launched with a single initial blast and allowed to coast. Instead, the engines are
continuously burned over some extended period.
• The mass of the spacecraft decreases during launch, as fuel is burned, so that the rocket equation
must be employed.
• Most spacecraft are staged in some way (as described in Chapter 30), which also causes the
spacecraft mass to decrease with time during launch.
• The drag due to the Earth’s atmosphere must be accounted for, which we have not done here.
There’s another issue here. The above analysis assumes the spacecraft is launched from a non-rotating
Earth. In real life, we launch from a rotating Earth, which we can use to our advantage. Since the Earth is
rotating, we can use its rotational velocity to contribute to the needed launch velocity, as long as the
spacecraft is launched to the east so that it orbits the Earth in the same sense as the Earth’s rotation. The
linear velocity of the Earth due to its rotation is R ˚ω, where R˚ is the radius of the Earth (about 6378
km) and ω is the angular velocity of the Earth:
1 rev 2v rad
ω= =
24 hr 86400 sec = 7.2722 × 10—5 rad/s

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