- #1
solarblast
- 152
- 2
Computing the period of a meteor using two ways.
I'm looking at code that computes the orbit found for a meteor. It computes the period of the meteor as:
a = 13.07 # semi-major axis in AU
P = m.sqrt(a*a*a) # From the program
which yields P = 47.2512586393 Years
If I use the "standard" approach
P = 2*pi*m.sqrt((a*a*a)/mu),
where mu (=GM) is the standard gravitational constant (G*M or GM).
3986004418.0 in km**3/sec**2,
then I get:
P = 703462.683141 # units?
They certainly don't look close. A source I'm looking at says 4*pi*pi/G = 1, but they are talking about solar masses.
So why the large discrepancy? Units?
I'm looking at code that computes the orbit found for a meteor. It computes the period of the meteor as:
a = 13.07 # semi-major axis in AU
P = m.sqrt(a*a*a) # From the program
which yields P = 47.2512586393 Years
If I use the "standard" approach
P = 2*pi*m.sqrt((a*a*a)/mu),
where mu (=GM) is the standard gravitational constant (G*M or GM).
3986004418.0 in km**3/sec**2,
then I get:
P = 703462.683141 # units?
They certainly don't look close. A source I'm looking at says 4*pi*pi/G = 1, but they are talking about solar masses.
So why the large discrepancy? Units?