Horseshoe orbit
Videos
In celestial mechanics, a horseshoe orbit is a type of co-orbital motion of a small orbiting body relative to a larger orbiting body. The osculating orbital period of the smaller body remains very nea
Figure 1. Plan showing possible orbits along gravitational contours. In this image, the Earth (and the whole image with it) is rotating counterclockwise around the Sun.
Figure 2. Thin horseshoe orbit
Epimetheus (moon)
Videos
Epimetheus is an inner satellite of Saturn. It is named after the titan Epimetheus, the brother of Prometheus and son of Iapetus.
Horseshoe orbit
…a compound and/or transition orbit, or (85770) 1998 UP1 and 2003 YN107. By 2016, 12 horseshoe librators of Earth have been discovered. Saturn's moons Epimetheus and Janus occupy horseshoe orbits with respect to each other (in their case, there is no repeated looping: each one traces a full horseshoe with respect…
South pole of Epimetheus imaged by Cassini on 3 December 2007
Epimetheus
Epimetheus (lower left) and Janus (right) seen on 20 March 2006, two months after swapping orbits. The two moons appear close only because of foreshortening; in reality, Janus is about 40,000 km farther from Cassini than Epimetheus.
Epimetheus crossed by the shadow of the F Ring, as imaged by Voyager 1 (NASA)