Orbital eccentricity

Okay kiddo, let's talk about orbits and eccentricity. You know how planets and other things in space move around in circles or ellipses, just like the earth orbits around the sun? Well, the shape of the orbit isn't always perfectly circular.

Sometimes, the orbit can be a bit stretched out, like a squished circle or a stretched out oval. That is what we call an eccentric orbit.

Eccentricity is a measure of how much a planet or object's orbit is "squished" compared to a perfect circle. We use a number between 0 and 1 to describe eccentricity.

If something has an eccentricity of 0, that means its orbit is a perfect circle (like a pizza). If it has an eccentricity of 1, that means its orbit is really stretched out (like a football).

So remember, eccentricity is a way to describe how much a planet or object's orbit is squished compared to a perfect circle, and we use a number between 0 and 1 to describe it.