trustbutverify
Penultimate Amazing
- Joined
- May 5, 2007
- Messages
- 10,515
So nobody answered my simple thought experiment... how disappointing!
You didn't properly define initial conditions. However, if both the star and the planet began at complete rest relative to each other, there would be no orbits. Both objects would move towards each other directly along a line connecting their centers of mass, with the planet moving at a much higher velocity and therefore covering nearly all of the distance before collision.