Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

To: minnesota_bound

How long would it take the moon to orbit the earth if it was 3 times closer?


15 posted on 01/25/2019 1:15:42 PM PST by Verginius Rufus
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 14 | View Replies ]


To: Verginius Rufus

Interesting photo and video of what the moon looked like from earth so long ago. The video says 5 minutes to cross the sky.
https://slate.com/technology/2014/05/close-encounter-what-if-the-moon-orbited-much-closer-to-earth.html


17 posted on 01/25/2019 3:53:49 PM PST by minnesota_bound
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 15 | View Replies ]

To: Verginius Rufus

Sorry about the late reply.

This is actually easy to do, just use Kepler’s famous Third Law:

P squared / R cubed = a constant for any planet or sun.

where P = orbital period
and R = orbital diameter.

Example - Mars’ orbit is 1.52x Earth’s; So if you cube 1.52, then take the square root, you get that Mars’ orbital period is 1.87x Earth’s, or 684 days.

So in this case, cube 0.3333, then take the square root, and multiply it by the Moon’s current period (about 29 days), and you get - just under 6 days for 1 orbit back then.


20 posted on 01/25/2019 11:57:23 PM PST by canuck_conservative
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 15 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson