We consider the Newtonian four-body problem in the plane with a dominat mass
M. We study the planar central configurations of this problem when the remaining masses
are infinitesimal. We obtain two different classes of central configurations depending on the
mutual distances between the infinitesimal masses. Both classes exhibit ...»»»»
We consider the Newtonian four-body problem in the plane with a dominat mass
M. We study the planar central configurations of this problem when the remaining masses
are infinitesimal. We obtain two different classes of central configurations depending on the
mutual distances between the infinitesimal masses. Both classes exhibit symmetric and nonsymmetric
configurations. And when two infinitesimal masses are equal, with the help of
extended precision arithmetics, we provide evidence that the number of central configurations
varies from five to seven.^^^^