Question

a body moving in an inverse square attractive field traverse an elliptical orbit with eccentricity e and period gamma(y).find the time taken by body to traverse half of the orbit that is nearer to the centre of force ,explain briefly why a comet losses only 18% of its time on half of its orbit that is nearer the sun.

Answer 1

The range -/2 /2 which corresponds to the half of the orbit closer to the centre of force. The time taken is therefore

For example, Halley's comet proceeds onward an elliptic orbit whose eccentricity is nearly unit. It consequently spends just about 18% of its time on the half of its orbit that is closer the Sun.