- #1
Buzz Bloom
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- The article https://jwst.nasa.gov/content/about/orbit.html describes the planned placing the Webb telescope in orbit near the L2 Lagrange point of the Earth-Sun system. But L2 is gravitationally unstable.
The diagram in the article seems to say that the Webb will orbit around the unstable L2 point. At any distance near L2 but not exactly at L2 the Webb will tend to move further from L2, unless Webb has an engine and fuel to maintain it in the special orbit. I was not able to find any description of such an engine, so I am asking the Physics Forums participants what they might know about this.