Parking in Outer Space

Imagine you have a parking spot in space. Now imagine 5 of those. 3 of those have a superb view of 2 celestial objects. That is a Lagrange Point. I will call them LPs from this point on. Every two celestial objects have 5 LPs: 1 behind each body (so 1 body blocks the point from the other body), 1 in between the bodies and the other 2 form 2 equilateral triangles, one with each body (see diagram above). The burning question is, why does this happen? How does this magical spot work? Well, each celestial body (let’s take the Earth and the Sun) has a gravitational pull. These pulls interact and there are 5 specific points where it can balance the motion of a small object , so it can ‘park’ without drifting away. That is how a Lagrange point works.

Tomorrow, let’s talk about what gravity really is.