Curious about something very very cool!!

ScienceGeek24

What is the difference between orbital velocity and angular velocity ?? because they both have different formulas but sometimes i had to rely on angular velocity to find the velocity found in v^@/r=GMm/r^2. But, does it really matter how do i find my velocity with the equations of Newton?

Note: this is not hm question i'm just curious.

DennisN

Hi! Well, the unit of angular velocity (ω) is radians per second (or sometimes degrees per second), and the unit of orbital velocity (v) is meters per second. So they are different, of course; the first is not related to distance (metre).

Formulas and info on orbital velocity:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circular_orbit#Velocity
http://ceres.hsc.edu/homepages/class...ics/sec10.html
http://www.astronomynotes.com/gravappl/s8.htm