Comets in Lagrange Point

Doughnut I/O. U.E. 1338719976.

Mobile Suit Gundam AGE episode 34. One of the characters said something about comets caught in Lagrange Point and ice in it melted by the Sun.

Note: If you live in South Asia and Oceania, you can watch Gundam AGE series (currently on-air in Japan) from GundamInfo YouTube Channel.


My geek curiosity was arose: Lagrange points (Lagrangian points) are points (a dot, a very tiny tiny spot in space). How can a whole comet (big one) caught in that point? Moreover and more importantly, the comet would have an initial velocity. However, Gundam series are known to be hardcore Sci-Fis. In fact, I learnt that human can survive in the void of space for a few seconds from that series. I started the digging.


According to the Wikipedia:
The Lagrangian points (play /ləˈɡrɑːniən/; also Lagrange pointsL-points, or liberation points) are the five positions in an orbital configuration where a small object affected only by gravity can theoretically be stationary relative to two larger objects (such as a satellite with respect to the Earth and Moon). The Lagrange points mark positions where the combined gravitational pull of the two large masses provides precisely the centripetal force required to rotate with them.

A contour plot of the effective potential due to gravity and the centrifugal force of a two-body system in a rotating frame of reference. The arrows indicate the gradients of the potential around the five Lagrange points — downhill toward them (red) or away from them (blue). Counterintuitively, the L4 and L5 points are the high points of the potential. At the points themselves these forces are balanced.
In non-geek terms, every object that has a mass has gravity (a force pulling other objects to it). For any two objects, a Lagrange point is a point where the two gravitational force of the two objects are equal and a (third) object would not be pulled towards either the first object or the second object. L1 on the above diagram is the most intuitive point.

My doubts are not completely groundless. Although a tiny tiny comet that caught in the space surrounding L4 and L5 may be roughly stay there almost forever (not forever, almost forever), Lagrange points are still tiny tiny tiny points. Moreover, the highlight is "... object affected only by gravity ... ".

Yet, wait. Deeper diggings in ESA reveals that although L1, L2 and L3 are not very stable (since no object can be super tiny as a dot), L4 and L5 eventually caught dust and small asteriods. In fact, colonization on Lagrange Points (for both Earth-Moon system and Sun-Earth system) is at least a sound idea even if we cannot implement it in the foreseeable future.

My point is one should not under-estimate the potential knowledge-seeking value of the Animes.

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