Gravitational fields

Cards (7)

  • Kepler's first law states that the orbit of a planet is an ellipse with the sun at one focus
  • Kepler's second law states that as a planet moves around its orbit, it sweeps out equal areas in equal times.
  • Kepler's third law states that the square of the period of revolution of any two planets is directly proportional to the cube of their mean distances from the Sun.
  • Geostationary satellites:
    • be in an orbit above the Earth's equator
    • rotate in the same direction as the Earth's rotation
    • have an orbital period of 24 hours
  • Gravitational potential, Vg, of an object is the energy required to move the object to a point from infinity
  • Gravitational potential energy is the work done to move a mass from infinity to a point in a gravitational field
  • The minimum velocity required to escape the gravitational field of a mass is called the escape velocity and is independent of the object's mass