This applet shows satellites orbiting a central body from various starting dista

Question

This applet shows satellites orbiting a central body from various starting distances. The mass of the central body is much greater than the masses of the satellites. You should think of this applet as data obtained in an experiment (e.g., a set of videos made by compiling data of observations of satellites).

Determine the orbital period Tp of the purple (innermost) satellite when it has an initial speed of 2.0. (For this problem, the units are chosen for convenience and may be ignored for the first few parts of the problem.) Note that simply watching one orbit and seeing how long it takes will not give you three significant figures. Try to think of a technique that will.

Explanation / Answer

Orbital speed = circumference / time

2 = 2*pi*1 / Tp

Tp = 1*pi = 3.14

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