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Rotation and Revolution
©1995,1996 The Regents of the University of California
Rotation refers to the motion of an object, usually spherical but not necessarily so, spinning around its own axis. In a spherical object, the axis is a diameter of the sphere. In a non-spherical object it is the line of symmetry about which the object turns.

Revolution refers to what happens when an astronomical object circles around another astronomical object, not itself, where the other object is at the center (or focus) of the circle (or other conic section) formed by the path (not all paths are circular). For example, the earth revolves around the sun, the moon revolves around the earth. The path the object takes is called the orbit.

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