ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Perifocal coordinate system

Imagine you are playing with a toy car on a big piece of paper. You draw a big circle and put the toy car in the middle of the circle. You can move the car around the circle, and you can also move it closer to or further away from the center of the circle.

If you want to tell someone else where the car is on the paper, you can use a special system called a perifocal coordinate system. This system helps you describe exactly where the car is by using two numbers: one number tells you how far the car is from the center of the circle, and the other number tells you where it is on the circle.

For example, if you move the car to the top of the circle, you might say that it is at "1,90" in the perifocal coordinate system. This means that the car is 1 unit away from the center of the circle, and it is at 90 degrees on the circle (which is at the top).

The perifocal coordinate system is helpful in many different areas, such as mathematics, physics, and astronomy, where describing the position of objects in space is important. It helps people communicate and understand where things are located in relation to each other, even if they are very far away.