   in astrodynamics or celestial mechanics an elliptic orbit is a kepler orbit with the eccentricity less than 1; this includes the special case of a circular orbit, with eccentricity equal to zero. in a stricter sense, it is a kepler orbit with the eccentricity greater than 0 and less than 1 (thus excluding the circular orbit). in a wider sense it is a kepler orbit with negative energy. this includes the radial elliptic orbit, with eccentricity equal to 1. in a gravitational two-body problem with negative energy both bodies follow similar elliptic orbits with the same orbital period around their common barycenter. also the relative position of one body with respect to the other follows an elliptic orbit. examples of elliptic orbits include: hohmann transfer orbit, molniya orbit and tundra orbit. ==velocity== under standard assumptions the orbital speed (v\,) of a body traveling along an elliptic orbit can be computed from the vis-viva equation as: :v=\sqrt{\mu\left({2\over{r}}-{1\over{a}}\right)} where: *\mu\, is the standard gravitational parameter, *r\, is the distance between the orbiting bodies. *a\,\! is the length of the semi-major axis. the velocity equation for a hyperbolic trajectory has either + {1\over{a}}, or it is the same with the convention that in that case a is negative. == orbital period == under standard assumptions the orbital period (t\,\!) of a body traveling along an elliptic orbit can be computed as: :t=2\pi\sqrt{a^3\over{\mu}} where: *\mu\, is the standard gravitational parameter, *a\,\! is the length of the semi-major axis. conclusions: *the orbital period is equal to that for a circular orbit with the orbital radius equal to the semi-major axis (a\,\!), *for a given semi-major axis the orbital period does not depend on the eccentricity (see also: kepler's third law). ==energy== under standard assumptions, specific orbital energy (\epsilon\
Orbits