Visualization of the Sun-Earth Lagrange points. Orbital mechanics is a fun subject, as it involves a lot of seemingly empty space that’s nevertheless full of very real forces, all of which must be ...

You often hear about Lagrangian points because they can be handy places to “park” a spacecraft where it doesn’t need much fuel to stay in the same position relative to Earth. If gravity were the only ...

When people think about telescopes, they generally imagine those giant buildings perched on top of some mountain here on Earth, or some piece of hardware floating around in close Earth orbit. But ...

The idea of balanced forces is a central concept of physics, and we see it everywhere, from tug-of-war battles to card houses to football games. Until forces become unbalanced, the flag at the rope’s ...

Satellites and instruments placed at Lagrange points remain in a stable position because the gravitational forces from the Earth and sun balance each other, requiring only minimal energy for ...

The James Webb Space Telescope has been traveling through space since its launch on December 25, 2021, and will soon face the next crucial step in its mission, performing an orbital burn to insert ...

Correction: An earlier version of this story erroneously stated that China’s Queqiao satellite was orbiting the Earth-Sun L2 Lagrange point. In fact, Queqiao orbits the Earth-Moon L2 Lagrange point, a ...

China's second moon probe is parked at a stable spot in deep space, called a Lagrangian point, as part of a new mission to study the sun and Earth's magnetic field. The multi-tasking spacecraft, ...

Reliably guiding and capturing optical waves is central to the functioning of various contemporary technologies, including communication and information processing systems. The most conventional ...

Scientists have discovered a so-called Trojan asteroid in the L5 Lagrangian point at Neptune, where the gravitational tug between the gas giant and the Sun cancel each other out, allowing smaller ...