Heliosynchronous orbit
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article is about a class of orbits about the sun. For a class of orbits around the earth, see sun-synchronous orbit.
By analogy with the geosynchronous orbit, a heliosynchronous orbit is a heliocentric orbit where the satellite's period of revolution matches the Sun's period of rotation. These orbits occur at a radius of 24.360 Gm (0.1628 AU) around the Sun, a little less than half of the orbital radius of Mercury.
Similar to the geostationary orbit, the heliostationary orbit is the heliosynchronous orbit of inclination zero and eccentricity zero, so that the satellite would appear stationary to an observer on the Sun's surface.
To date, no satellites have been put in this kind of solar orbit.
[edit] See also
An Earth satellite orbit in which the orbital plane is near polar and the altitude is such that a satellite will always pass over a specific place on the Earth at the same time and at fixed time intervals. (The satellite ascends across the equator at the same local solar time.)
 |
This astronomy related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
