ORBIT

(Lat. orb is, a circle.) In Astronomy, the path which any celestial body describes by its proper motion. The orbits of all the planets and satellites are ellipses; and recent discoveries seem to show that the orbits of double stars, which revolve about each other, are curves of the same kind. Some comets have been supposed to move in hyperbolic orbits. For the magnitudes and eccentricities of the planetary orbits, see Planets. See also Moon, Satellite, Star. OuBiT. In Ornithology, the term is applied to the skin which surrounds the eye: this is generally the base of feathers, for the facility of its movements, but especially so in the parrot tribe and the heron. Orbit. In Osteology, the bony cavity in which the eyeball is imbedded. Each orbit is formed by seven bones,— the frontal, maxillary, jugal, lachrymal, ethmoid, palatine, and sphenoid. [s. 864]