Kepler's First Law and the Two-Body Problem

ADHITYA

The simplest possible gravitational system consists of two point particles (idealized masses with zero volume) in a vacuum, attracting each other with gravity and nothing else. This scenario provides a fairly decent approximation for many astrophysical systems, like the interaction of two stars in a binary, the orbits of planets around stars, and the orbits of satellites. This post will walk you through the process of reducing a two-body gravitational system into a one-body problem, and then provide a derivation of Kepler's First Law.

Kepler's First Law and the Two-Body Problem.pdf

Download PDF • 157KB