Abstract
Newton’s laws of motion and gravity come together to explain the motion of planets around the Sun, plus a wide range of other astrophysical systems. In this chapter we study a system in which the source of gravity (e.g., the Sun) is stationary and a single object (e.g., a planet) is in motion. While Newton’s third law tells us that a planet’s gravitational pull must also cause the Sun to move, the Sun is so much more massive than any planet that its motion can be neglected as a first approximation.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
Special versions of these terms are used for certain situations: perigee/apogee for an orbit around Earth, and perihelion/aphelion for an orbit around the Sun.
- 2.
X-ray astronomers often quote energy rather than frequency or wavelength using the quantum relation \(E = h\nu = hc/\lambda\).
- 3.
Maser originally stood for “microwave amplification by stimulated emission of radiation,” although “microwave” is now sometimes replaced by “molecular.” A laser is similar to a maser except that it operates in the visible portion of the electromagnetic spectrum (the “l” stands for “light,” specifically meaning visible light).
- 4.
We quantify this idea in terms of a gravitational “sphere of influence” in Sect. 3.3.1.
- 5.
For comparison, the energy released by fusion in stars corresponds to an efficiency \(\varepsilon = 0.007\) (see Sect. 15.2).
- 6.
References
S.S. Doeleman et al., Nature 455, 78 (2008)
F.K. Baganoff et al., Astrophys. J. 591, 891 (2003)
A.M. Ghez, S. Salim, S.D. Hornstein, A. Tanner, J.R. Lu, M. Morris, E.E. Becklin, G. Duchêne, Astrophys. J. 620, 744 (2005)
S. Gillessen, F. Eisenhauer, S. Trippe, T. Alexander, R. Genzel, F. Martins, T. Ott, Astrophys. J. 692, 1075 (2009)
J. Dreyer, R. Sinnott, NGC 2000.0: The Complete New General Catalogue and Index Catalogues of Nebulae and Star Clusters by J.L.E. Dreyer (Cambridge University Press, New York, 1988)
J.R. Herrnstein, J.M. Moran, L.J. Greenhill, P.J. Diamond, M. Inoue, N. Nakai, M. Miyoshi, C. Henkel, A. Riess, Nature 400, 539 (1999)
J.L. Walsh, A.J. Barth, M. Sarzi, Astrophys. J. 721, 762 (2010)
S. Tremaine et al., Astrophys. J. 574, 740 (2002)
J. Kormendy, L.C. Ho, Annu. Rev. Astron. Astrophys. 51, 511 (2013)
S.L. Shapiro, S.A. Teukolsky, Black Holes, White Dwarfs and Neutron Stars: The Physics of Compact Objects (Wiley, New York, 1986)
L.S. Sparke, J.S. Gallagher, III, Galaxies in the Universe: An Introduction (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2007)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2014 Springer Science+Business Media New York
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Keeton, C. (2014). Gravitational One-Body Problem. In: Principles of Astrophysics. Undergraduate Lecture Notes in Physics. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-9236-8_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-9236-8_3
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-1-4614-9235-1
Online ISBN: 978-1-4614-9236-8
eBook Packages: Physics and AstronomyPhysics and Astronomy (R0)