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Kishore178 (talk | contribs) Fix sign of the Euler equations (also fixed the sign in the other required places). After this edit, the form of the Euler equations mentioned here will be consistent with that mentioned in the page for Euler's rotation equations (the correct one, IMO) |
Citation bot (talk | contribs) Add: s2cid, bibcode, arxiv. Removed proxy/dead URL that duplicated identifier. | Use this bot. Report bugs. | Suggested by Headbomb | Linked from Wikipedia:WikiProject_Academic_Journals/Journals_cited_by_Wikipedia/Sandbox | #UCB_webform_linked 251/296 |
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This happened to [[Explorer 1#Results|Explorer 1]], the first [[satellite]] launched by the [[United States]] in 1958. The elongated body of the spacecraft had been designed to spin about its long (least-[[inertia]]) axis but refused to do so, and instead started [[Precession|precessing]] due to energy [[dissipation]] from flexible structural elements.
In general, celestial bodies large or small would converge to a constant rotation around its axis of maximal moment of inertia. Whenever a celestial body is found in a complex rotational state, it is either due to a recent impact or tidal interaction, or is a fragment of a recently disrupted progenitor.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Efroimsky |first=Michael |date=March 2002 |title=Euler, Jacobi, and Missions to Comets and Asteroids
== See also ==
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