There's extra than simply gravity at work within the photo voltaic system

Ever since Isaac Newton famously spoke about gravity, its dominance as a force in our solar system has been known. It is responsible for the orbits of planets and their satellites, but there are other forces that have shaped our planetary neighborhood. A new paper has been published in which an astronomer discusses how the ice recoiled from comets can push them around and how the sun's radiation pressure pushes matter outward. There are also relativistic effects that can cause particles to spiral inward toward the sun.

Gravity is the force that determines the structure and movement of the solar system, holding celestial bodies together in a cosmic dance. With its immense mass, the sun creates the strongest gravitational pull and anchors planets, asteroids, comets and other objects in its orbit. Each planet's orbit arises from the balance between its speed and the Sun's gravitational force, creating elliptical orbits described by Kepler's laws of motion. Likewise, moons remain in orbit around their parent planet due to the gravitational forces exerted by their parent planet. Gravity not only ensures the stability of these orbits, but also influences phenomena such as tides on Earth, which are caused by the Moon's gravitational pull.

View of the moon's edge with the Earth on the horizon, Mare Smythii region. Earthrise. This image was taken before the separation of the LM and command module during the Apollo 11 mission. The original film magazine was designated V. Film type: S0-368 color, shot with a 250mm lens. Approximate photo scale 1:1,300,000. The main point was the 3rd parallel north and the 85th longitude east. The forward overlap is 90%. The sun angle is high. The approximate minimum inclination is 65 degrees, the maximum is 69 degrees. The slope direction is west (W).

In the paper, written by David Jewitt of the University of California, he examines other forces shaping our solar system. Gravity certainly describes the motion of planetary bodies of mass, but there are other forces that exert forces on smaller bodies that are susceptible to its effects. These forces include, but are not limited to, recoil (according to Newton's third law of motion that every action has an equal and opposite reaction), torque due to loss of mass, radiation pressure, and more.

The aim of the article is to provide a simple but informative overview of the various non-gravitational forces at work in the solar system. References to relevant applications from existing works and publications are given and presented in such a way that they are also accessible to laypeople. An important point is that the work assumes that all orbits are circular, while real bodies are not perfectly spherical and orbits are not perfectly circular. The author claims that these approximations ensure that rough estimates of force magnitudes can still be achieved.

Of the non-gravitational forces considered in the paper, the recoil caused by the sublimation of ice on comets and asteroids is by far the largest. The heat from the sun instantly turns the ice into a gas instead of melting into a liquid. This is the sublimation process. However, as the ice sublimes, the escaping volatile gases, like a bullet leaving a gun, and in accordance with Newton's laws, transfer momentum and exert a recoil force on the body. The sublimation process largely depends on temperature and acts in the antisolar direction.

Comet image from Hubble

There is another force associated with the appearance of comets, radiation pressure, which shapes their characteristic tails. This is the force that light exerts when photons transfer momentum to an object such as comet dust or gas, thereby pushing it away. The pressure depends on the intensity of the radiation and the reflectivity of the object, with more reflective objects experiencing greater force. Although small, radiation pressure can shape comet tails and gradually change the orbits of small bodies in the solar system.

The sun releases a steady stream of charged particles called the solar wind. When it hits unprotected surfaces like asteroids or the moon, it can change chemistry and even create water molecules. Photo credit: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center/Mary Pat Hrybyk-Keith

Source: Nongravitational Forces in Planetary Systems

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