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Goddard Glossary: LaGrange Points

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How does a spacecraft find its place in space? For Goddard Glossary, we took a look at LaGrange points, stable and semi-stable balance points where spacecraft like the James Webb Space Telescope make their home.

Music Provided by Universal Production Music: Back Through Time [Instrumental] by Jonathan Elias [ASCAP],David Ashok Ramani [ASCAP]

Video Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
Meghan AmRhein (NASA Interns): Producer

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Video Description:
00:00 A woman in a blue t-shirt and braids stands in front of an illustration of Lagrange points with the Sun at the left, the Earth at the right, and lines connecting them.

00:07 An animation showing Lagrange points. The Sun is at the center of the image with five points orbiting around it in a circle. Labels appear over three of the points, equally spread out around the circle, and labeled L3, L4, and L5. It zooms in on L1 and L2, which sit between L4 and L5 on the circle.

00:20 Back to the woman.

00:21 A different animation showing Lagrange points. The Sun is at the center of a circle and Earth sits below it on the circle. Lines branch from Earth and the Sun to form a handful of triangles and points which are the Lagrange points, once again labeled L1 through L5.

00:24 Back to the woman.

00:32 The same animation with Earth and the Sun, however, only L1, L2 and L3 can be seen. They form a straight line that goes from the opposite side of Earth to the opposite side of the Sun.

00:35 Back to the woman.

00:41 An animation of Earth orbiting the Sun which is off screen except for when Earth passes it, and a spacecraft noted as a dot, orbiting L2 near Earth.

00:44 Back to the woman.

00:48 A different animation of Earth orbiting the Sun, which is at the center of the video. Now the James Webb Space Telescope is seen orbiting L2 on the opposite side of Earth from the sun. Earth’s orbit lines are blue and Webb’s are yellow.

00:54 Back to the woman.
Category
Tech
Tags
#Orbits, Goddard, James Webb Space Telescope
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