Orbital period
Article
An orbital period is the time required for an object to complete one orbit around another body or around a common centre of mass. The period depends mainly on the orbit's size and the mass of the system.
Kepler's third law relates the square of the orbital period to the cube of the semi-major axis for bodies orbiting the same central mass. Larger orbits generally require longer periods.
Several definitions are used depending on the reference point. These include sidereal, synodic, anomalistic, draconic, and tropical periods, each measuring recurrence relative to stars, another moving body, periapsis, an orbital node, or an equinox.
Orbital periods range from minutes for low artificial satellites to days, years, centuries, or longer for moons, planets, comets, binary stars, and galactic systems.
Source details and credits
- Source / publisher: Wikipedia
- URL type: WWW
- Credits: Wikipedia
- URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbital_period