Is Gravity Elastic?

[sandyRoe]

When an object with an elliptical orbit is at its nearest to the Sun it must be experiencing a certain force of gravity. As it moves away from the Sun it must reach a point when the gravity that once held it is no longer strong enough to keep it in a circular orbit.
I know next to nothing about science, as this question probably shows.

[Duncer]

Sandy, stop it!!

My head hurts.

[sandyRoe]

I believe the ABers who know the answer think it's too difficult to explain to a layman.

[Old_Geezer]

It's not trying to keep it in circular orbit. It's just the path taken in curved space.

Imagine the ball going around on the rubber sheet with the a dip in it. It doesn't necessarily hold a circular path, it builds up speed approaching the dip, shoots past, then gradually slows down as it goes up the potential the other side, and then turns around and approaches again. Eliptical orbit. Of which a circle is just a single special case.

[Old_Geezer]

Now what we really want to know is whether time is elastic :-)

[sandyRoe]

Surely empirical evidence suggests that it is. You're sitting in the dentists waiting room and time seems to drag, doing something you enjoy and time flies.

[Old_Geezer]

True but that's probably my mind being elastic.

[wildwood]

Not sure that anything can escape completely.

A comet's path sort of fits the description. As it moves further from the sun it slows down until it's kenetic force is less than the sun's gravity and so comes back again speeding up until it is close to the sun and swings around by solar gravity. By then it goes so fast that the speed sends it out again for another 76 or millions of years.

I think.

[Tilly2]

I read that as 'Is gravy elastic?' Mine's lumpy, usually.

[shoota]

Yes, but are your lumps elliptical?

[Tilly2]

They tend to be spherical, shoota.

[Psybbo]

Tut Tilly, use a whisk

[Tilly2]

I whisk it to death, sibton but the spheres escape through the elliptical metal bits.

[tonyav]

Your going off on a tangent here Tilly.

[Tilly2]

Like a circle in a spiral,like a wheel within a wheel.

[Tilly2]

Sorry, sandyRoe, I'm spoiling your thread.

[tonyav]

That reminds me of my Spirograph set from when I was a kid Tilly.

[Psybbo]

We're all rogue asteroids, sandy

[tonyav]

Or even shooting stars.

[shoota]

However it is a condition that responds well to diverse unctions.

[Psybbo]

or functions?