Latest Lagrangian point Stories

  As early as Sept. 8th, NASA's GRAIL mission will blast off to uncover some of the mysteries beneath the surface of the Moon. That cratered gray exterior hides some tantalizing things – even, perhaps, a long-lost companion. If a paper published recently in the journal Nature* is right, two moons once graced our night skies. The proposition has not been proven, but has drawn widespread attention. "It's an intriguing idea," says David Smith, GRAIL's deputy principal investigator at...

WASHINGTON, July 27, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Astronomers studying observations taken by NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) mission have discovered the first known "Trojan" asteroid orbiting the sun along with Earth. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO) Trojans are asteroids that share an orbit with a planet near stable points in front of or behind the planet. Because they constantly lead or follow in the same orbit as the planet, they never...

The first of two ARTEMIS ("Acceleration, Reconnection, Turbulence and Electrodynamics of the Moon's Interaction with the Sun") spacecraft is now in its lunar orbit.On June 22, ARTEMIS P1 began firing its thrusters to move out of its kidney-shaped "libration" orbit on one side of the moon, where it has been since January. Three successive maneuvers were used to kick the spacecraft out of its orbit and send it on a trajectory toward the moon.It continued on that path until...

In August 1960, NASA launched its first communications satellite, Echo 1. Fifty years later, NASA has achieved another first by placing the ARTEMIS-P1 spacecraft into a unique orbit behind the moon, but not actually orbiting the moon itself. This type of orbit, called an Earth-Moon libration orbit, relies on a precise balancing of the Sun, Earth, and Moon gravity so that a spacecraft can orbit about a virtual location rather than about a planet or moon. The diagrams below show the full...

There are places in space where the gravitational tug between a planet and the Sun balance out, allowing other smaller bodies to remain stable. These places are called Lagrangian points. So-called Trojan asteroids have been found in some of these stable spots near Jupiter and Neptune. Trojans share their planet's orbit and help astronomers understand how the planets formed and how the solar system evolved. Now Scott Sheppard at the Carnegie Institution's Department of Terrestrial Magnetism...

When you ask an astronomer about the James Webb Space Telescope's orbit, they'll tell you something that sounds like it came from a science-fiction novel. The Webb won't be orbiting the Earth "“ instead we will send it almost a million miles out into space to a place called "L2."L2 is short-hand for the second Lagrange Point, a wonderful accident of gravity and orbital mechanics, and the perfect place to park the Webb telescope in space. There are five so-called "Lagrange Points" - areas...

Last night, the detectors of Planck's High Frequency Instrument reached their amazingly low operational temperature of -273°C, making them the coldest known objects in space. The spacecraft has also just entered its final orbit around the second Lagrange point of the Sun-Earth system, L2. Planck is equipped with a passive cooling system that brings its temperature down to about -230°C by radiating heat into space. Three active coolers take over from there, and bring the temperature...

Beginning today, ESA's Planck satellite will carry out a critical mid-course maneuver that will place the satellite on its final trajectory for arrival at L2, the second Lagrange point of the Sun-Earth system, early in July.The maneuver is scheduled to begin at 19:28 CEST on June 5 2009, and will last for up to 30 hours.Planck's main thrusters will conduct repeated 'pulse burns' during this time, switching on then off for 6 seconds every minute.This pulse-burn technique is necessary because...

The European Space Agency says the commissioning of scientific instruments and subsystems aboard its Herschel and Planck spacecraft has started. The two space observatories were lifted into orbit aboard an Ariane 5 rocket last week from the French spaceport at Kourou, French Guiana. Scientists said Herschel and Planck were functioning nominally and are now en route to their final orbits around the second Lagrange point, a spot in space know as L2, approximately 932,000 miles from Earth....

After a perfect injection by the Ariane 5 launcher on May 14, the critical Launch and Early Orbit Phase (LEOP) for Herschel and Planck has started to wind down, while commissioning of the scientific instruments and subsystems on both spacecraft has begun.Herschel and Planck are functioning nominally and are now en route to their final orbits around the second Lagrange point of the Sun-Earth system (L2), a point in space 1.5 million kms from Earth on the night-side.  The additional ground...