What is a Lagrangian Point? (specifically L1)

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This question is brought up due to confusion over that cool video of an asteroid cricling the Earth and not understanding the explanation of what the L1 represents. Thank you.

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Anonymous 0 Comments

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagrange_point

> At the Lagrange points, the gravitational forces of the two large bodies and the centrifugal force balance each other.

> Small objects placed in orbit at Lagrange points are in equilibrium in at least two directions relative to the center of mass of the large bodies.

Basically, when you have two objects orbiting each other (sun and earth, earth and moon, etc.), there are 5 points where gravity and centrifugal force cancel each other out. You can plop something at a lagrange point and it’ll just stay there (relative to the two objects). Which is why we put the new James Webb telescope at L2.

In other words, if you look at the sun and earth from above and rotate to keep the earth “stationary”, the lagrange points are also stationary. If you instead don’t rotate and watch the earth orbit the sun, it’ll look like the lagrange points “follow” the earth.

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