the.com/orbit
a permanent fall that keeps missing the ground it's racing toward
means the curved path one object takes around another under the pull of gravity, or by extension a recurring sphere of influence or routine one moves within.
from From Latin 'orbita,' meaning a wheel track or rut left by a chariot wheel — itself from 'orbis,' a ring, disk, or circle. The word first rolled into English as a term for the eye socket (still 'orbit' in anatomy, the bony ring around the eye), and only later was lifted to the heavens to name the looping tracks planets carve through space — the universe, it turns out, leaves wheel ruts too.
- perpetual falling
- orbiting objects are falling sideways fast enough to miss Earth
- moon's drift
- the Moon escapes Earth 3.8 cm every year
- stable spots
- Lagrange points let objects park in gravitational balance
- decaying ends
- low orbits drag against thin air until they burn
- speed required
- low Earth orbit demands roughly 28,000 km per hour
international space station — orbits earth every 90 minutes at 17,500 mph, 250 miles up
geostationary orbit — satellites hover over same spot on earth 22,236 miles up, used for weather and tv
moon's orbit around earth — completes one cycle every 27.3 days at average distance of 238,855 miles