Why does stuff move in a parabola on earth but in an ellipse in space?
Cuberoot @ Cuberoot @lemmynsfw.com Posts 3Comments 108Joined 2 yr. ago
Cuberoot @ Cuberoot @lemmynsfw.com
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Elliptical orbit is what you get when all gravity vectors point to a single source such as Earth's center of mass. If you instead make the "flat Earth" assumption that all gravity vectors are parallel, then you get a parabola. Since most of us aren't throwing things very far on a planetary scale, the parabolic approximation is frequently considered "good enough".