Gravitational Fields - Satellites & Kepler's LawsOn wey. ere wee oka in Tv re (lena, @ \ow Long oaks one youd. the star... Nek vecath ved ond Brak Up we. assure ao cucu olds (whi 6 vnong ..) Hen 2 Wr dpe gekonsthe oe ors: & b= Sor 1 prays onitk & >the praok | mee So ye 22oe > Te 2er = a) Now sub O=-@3 Tee ies ust tte fran eb on depends one ds-annatinge ovkibe\ Vedi Whats so amazing ithe Kepler could checkthis out by observing the vile planets gen that he een 2630 Paria or S0- it doesn't matter what size a planet it- its orbital period is only dictated by the M ofthe star, and the orbit'sradius. You can also see that if ‘planet closer to the sun, eg Venus moves faster than one which isfurther lke Mars ‘What is exciting about this formulas that itis full of constants... G, M, 4, pi. Other Things About Satellites the orbitis perfectly cicular, and there sno loss of energy, then the PE and KE stay fixed. However, most orbits are eliptical~ and so the ‘value ofr varies during the orbit So as a satelite get's nearer it loses PE, gains KE and thus moves faster. (Obviously things are diferent if we hhave an energy source) Geostationary Orbits- these are when a satelite takes the same time to orbit asthe planet takes to rotate ones. We say they are in ‘synchronous orbit. They need to be directly above the equator, have a radius of 42000Km and have the same angular speed asthe earth Low orbit satelites are below 2000km above the earth surface These are easier to get into space obviousiy, and tend to pass over the poles Since ‘their period isnot the same asthe planet's they wil scan’ over the whole surface over a period of time, ‘There are many artifical satellites orbiting earth-~ this raises the interesting, and mostly ignored question of ‘space junk.