Recently I've been thinking about planetary aberration. This is the
effect where the finite speed of light causes an orbiting body to see
the opposite body on its past light cone, and thus displaced from its
"now" position directly opposite the center of gravity. The problem
is that if the body it attracted directly towards this displaced
position, there is a torque on the system that would cause it to
speed up.
This clearly does not happen. [...] My question for this group is why
not?
Recently I've been thinking about planetary aberration. This is the
effect where the finite speed of light causes an orbiting body to see
the opposite body on its past light cone, and thus displaced from its
"now" position directly opposite the center of gravity. The problem is
that if the body it attracted directly towards this displaced position,
there is a torque on the system that would cause it to speed up.
This clearly does not happen. A quick calculation for the earth-sun
system shows that the angular momentum would double in about 800 years,
which clearly has not been happening.
My question for this group is why not?
Sysop: | Keyop |
---|---|
Location: | Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, UK |
Users: | 344 |
Nodes: | 16 (2 / 14) |
Uptime: | 30:02:21 |
Calls: | 7,518 |
Calls today: | 15 |
Files: | 12,713 |
Messages: | 5,642,183 |
Posted today: | 2 |