Orbital motion, natural and artificial satellites

What is a circular orbit

This is where planets move around the Sun in almost circular orbits

What’s the Earths orbit

virtually circular

What is holding the earth in its orbit around the sun

The force of gravity acting between the sun and earth

What are artificial satellites

Are satellites that are man made

What are Geostationary satellites

They orbit once every 24 hours so they always point to the same part of the earth

When an object is travelling in a circle around a planet what does this mean

It’s constantly changing direction which means it’s constantly accelerating which means a constant change in velocity but not speed

What does the force of gravity basically do to an object

It changes the velocity of the object but not the speed l

What force acts on a object in the centre for it to accelerate

The gravitational force(gravity) between the planets or satellites and the Sun

What happens when you get closer to a star or planet

The stronger the gravitational force

What does the stronger the force of a plant mean

The faster the orbiting object needs to travel to remain in orbit it(to not crash into the object it’s orbiting)

What needs to happen if the speed of a satellite orbiting change

The size of the radius of the orbit must change also

So what happens if the speed of a satellite increases

Then the radius of its orbit decreases this is beacsue at a higher speed the satellite needs a greater force of gravity to prevent it flying off into space.

-So by moving closer to the earth the gravitational force on the satellite is greater and the satellite remains in a stable orbit