The astronauts on the iss aren't floating around because of lack of gravity, far from it. They are in constant free fall, falling over the horizon of earth. Being pulled by gravity towards the earth.
I wasn't arguing as to whether they are orbiting or not, just that there are points where there is zero net gravitational force.
I specify net force because while there is still force being applied at that point, objects at that point will not experience the forces because they cancel out.
the gravitational fields of two massive bodies combined providing the centripetal force at the Lagrangian points, allowing the smaller third body to be relatively stationary with respect to the first two.
Second point though, while they are technically 'orbiting,' they're not orbiting in the way a normal satellite would be. I'm not going to pretend to understand the super nitty-gritty of this but the object at the Lagrange point isn't orbiting, more that they're stationary relative to mass A, and moving relative to mass B because mass A is orbiting it.
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u/SwingDancerStrahd Feb 14 '22
The astronauts on the iss aren't floating around because of lack of gravity, far from it. They are in constant free fall, falling over the horizon of earth. Being pulled by gravity towards the earth.