CHAP. IX - OF THE SATELLITES

Summary

(450.) In the annual circuit of the earth about the sun, it is constantly attended by its satellite, the moon, which revolves round it, or rather both round their common center of gravity; while this center, strictly speaking, and not either of the two bodies thus connected, moves in an elliptic orbit, undisturbed by their mutual action, just as the center of gravity of a large and small stone tied together and flung into the air describes a parabola as if it were a real material substance under the earth's attraction, while the stones circulate round it or round each other, as we choose to conceive the matter.

(451.) If we trace, therefore, the real curve actually described by either the moon's or earth's centers, in virtue of this compound motion, it will appear to be, not an exact ellipse, but an undulated curve, like that represented in the figure to article 272., only that the number of undulations in a whole revolution is but 13, and their actual deviation from the general ellipse, which serves them as a central line, is comparatively very much smaller — so much so, indeed, that every part of the curve described by either the earth or moon is concave towards the sun. The excursions of the earth on either side of the ellipse, indeed, are so very small as to be hardly appreciable.