ESA title
Joseph-Louis Lagrange
Science & Exploration

25 January

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ESA / Science & Exploration / Space Science

1736: On 25 January 1736, Joseph Louis Lagrange was born in Turin, Italy.

Lagrange discovered five special points in the vicinity of two orbiting masses where the combined gravitational forces are zero. Thus, a third, smaller mass can orbit at a fixed distance from the larger masses. These points are widely used as the orbit positions of space missions.

These special balance points in geometry of the orbits of satellites are called Lagrangian points in honour of their discoverer.

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