Elliptic orbit

Animation of Orbit by eccentricity
  0.0 ·   0.2 ·   0.4 ·   0.6 ·   0.8
Two bodies with similar mass orbiting around a common barycenter with elliptic orbits.
Two bodies with unequal mass orbiting around a common barycenter with circular orbits.
Two bodies with highly unequal mass orbiting a common barycenter with circular orbits.
An elliptical orbit is depicted in the top-right quadrant of this diagram, where the gravitational potential well of the central mass shows potential energy, and the kinetic energy of the orbital speed is shown in red. The height of the kinetic energy decreases as the orbiting body's speed decreases and distance increases according to Kepler's laws.

In astrodynamics or celestial mechanics, an elliptical orbit or eccentric orbit is an orbit with an eccentricity of less than 1; this includes the special case of a circular orbit, with eccentricity equal to 0. Some orbits with high eccentricity are described as "elongated", but that is not an explanatory term. For the simple two-body problem, all orbits are ellipses.

In a gravitational two-body problem, both bodies follow similar elliptical orbits with the same orbital period around their common barycenter. The relative position of one body with respect to the other also follows an elliptic orbit.

In the Solar System the dominant mass of the sun ensures planets each follow nearly circular elliptic orbits (e near 0) with the sun at the main focus while comets such as Halley is highly eccentric or elongated orbit (e near 1). Examples of elliptic orbits or trajectories for satellites include Hohmann transfer orbits, Molniya orbits, and tundra orbits.

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