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Do Planets Travel in Circular Orbits?

Marcus Vance • • 7 min read
Do Planets Travel in Circular Orbits?

Orbits come in different shapes. All orbits are elliptical, which means they are an ellipse, similar to an oval. For the planets, the orbits are almost circular. ... For planets, the point in their orbit closest to the sun is perihelion

perihelion
This is called the periapsis of the orbit. The mountain represents the highest point in the orbit. That's called the apoapsis. The altitude affects the time an orbit takes, called the orbit period.
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Do planets move in circular or elliptical orbits?

Kepler's Laws of Planetary Motion

They describe how (1) planets move in elliptical orbits with the Sun as a focus, (2) a planet covers the same area of space in the same amount of time no matter where it is in its orbit, and (3) a planet's orbital period is proportional to the size of its orbit (its semi-major axis).

Do planets revolve in circular orbits?

Now, it turns out that the orbits of the planets are pretty circular. It's hard to see the difference with your eye. But they are actually ellipses, and this was first worked out in the early 1600s by Johannes Kepler.

Marcus Vance
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Marcus Vance

Marcus Vance is a cybersecurity auditor and technology writer dedicated to educating the public about online safety, data privacy regulations, enterprise security, and emerging cyber threats.