can anyone help me with this please? or help me find a website?
which of these different kinds of satellites travel the fastest?
how does their speed compare to the of the planets?
which planet travels the fastest?
2007-09-13 06:10:20 · 5 answers · asked by princess 2 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Astronomy & Space
oh the first question:
which of these different kind of satellites travel the fastest?
1. geosynchronous orbits
2. RADARSAT satellite
3. GPS-global positioning system
2007-09-13 06:20:22 · update #1
I don't know about the satellites because I don't know which two satellites you a referring to, however I do know that Mercury is the fastest planet.
Good Luck
2007-09-13 06:21:21 · answer #1 · answered by Kii 3 · 0⤊ 1⤋
Campbell is right; The lower the satellite, the faster it moves.
1. Geo-synch satellites typically are at 23,600 miles altitude, and orbit once per day. They're the slowest.
2. GPS satellites orbit (IIRC) at 350 miles, and move at about 17,250MPH
3. Radarsat I *believe* is a low-flying satellite, 120 miles up, and moves fastest, at 17,500MPH.
Of the planets, the same rule applies - those closer to the sun move faster than the ones further out, so Mercury would move the fastest, and orbits the sun in 88 days. Mercury is about 34 million miles out, so figure it has to go D = 2pi(34 million)
= 2 X 3.141529 X 34 milllion = 213,623,972 miles in 88 days, or about 2,427,545 miles per day, which makes Mercury's speed about 101,147 MPH.
2007-09-13 13:50:37 · answer #2 · answered by quantumclaustrophobe 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
campbelp2002 is correct. Orbital speed decreases with altitude.
A geosynchronous satellite is about 36000 km above Earth and go about 3km/sec. GPS satellites are about 22000 km above Earth. RADAR-SATs are about 800 km above the Earth and whiz by at almost 8km/sec.
An orbital velocity calculator is at the link below.
Planets generally are much faster by virtue of the Sun's mass. Mercury orbits the sun at a velocity of 45 km/sec. Neptune is much slower at about 5 km/sec.
Orbital velocity of any object can be calculated by:
v = (GM/r)^1/2
where G is the gravitational constant, M is the mass of the object being orbited, r is the orbital radius.
2007-09-13 13:43:35 · answer #3 · answered by gebobs 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The lower the orbit, the faster the orbit. For planets you might say smaller instead of lower, because we usually don't think of Venus as being in a lower orbit than the Earth, we think of it as a smaller or closer orbit around the Sun.
2007-09-13 13:15:54 · answer #4 · answered by campbelp2002 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Since 'geosynchronous' means that they are motionless in relation to the earth, they would automatically be the slowest, wouldn't you think?
This is why homeschooling sucks so badly....
2007-09-13 13:28:04 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 2⤋