Differential solar gravitational forces on the Earth-Moon system produce three effects: 1) they elongate the Moon’s orbit at quadrature (first or last quarter), 2) they cause the perigee of the Moon’s orbit to precess, and 3) they cause a torque on the inclined orbit, which causes the line of nodes to regress westward. The short summary is that as a result, the Moon’s orbit is not a simple ellipse.
Differential solar gravitational forces on the Earth-Moon system produce three effects: 1) they elongate the Moon’s orbit at quadrature (first or last quarter), 2) they cause the perigee of the Moon’s orbit to precess, and 3) they cause a torque on the inclined orbit, which causes the line of nodes to regress westward. The short summary is that as a result, the Moon’s orbit is not a simple ellipse.
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Differential solar gravitational forces on the Earth-Moon system produce three
effects: 1) they elongate the Moon’s orbit at quadrature (first or last quarter), 2) they cause
the perigee of the Moon’s orbit to precess, and 3) they cause a torque on the inclined orbit,
which causes the line of nodes to regress westward. The short summary is that as a result,
the Moon’s orbit is not a simple ellipse.
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Step 1: Effect of differential solar gravitational forces
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