The moon has a period of 27.3 days and a mean distance of 3.90 x 10^5 km from the center of Earth.
a) Use Kepler's laws to find the period of a satellite in orbit 6.70 x 10^3 km from the center of Earth
--- I was able to do this and the answer i got was: 88.6 mins, but was stuck on the 2nd part of this question, which is below:
b)How far above Earth's surface is this satellite?
2 answers
You have the mean distance from the center of Earth. Normally, one might subtract the thickness of the Earth from the center to get the distance from the Surface .
you have to subtract the radius of earth from the total radius
so:
6.7x10^3-6.38x10^3
=0.4 km
or
=400 m
so:
6.7x10^3-6.38x10^3
=0.4 km
or
=400 m
1 answer