Q&A 64: What If The Milky Way Lost Its Black Hole? And More...
In this week's question's show, I answer what would happen if the Milky Way lost its supermassive black hole, why can't you spiral stuff into the Sun, why do we assume life breathes oxygen?
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Comments (1)
The proof that lower energy orbits have faster velocities is visible in the motions of Earth-orbiting satellites: a satellite in LEO takes about 90 min to go around a ~49,000 km circle (~7.7 km/sec); a satellite in GEO takes 24 hrs to go around a 266,000 km orbit (~3.1 km/sec); and a satellite in the Moon's orbit takes ~27.3 days to go ~2,460,000 km (<1.1 km/sec). To go from higher to lower (e.g. from the Moon to Earth, or from Earth to the Sun, etc.), one must cancel one's orbital velocity, which -- counter intuitively -- RAISES one's orbital velocity while lowering the altitude of the orbit. Orbital mechanics are HARD to understand sometimes. ^_^;;; (EDIT: which shows in the fact that I had to correct the LEO velocity after re-checking because "9.0 km/sec" didn't look right to me, & neither did the Lunar orbital circumference of "783,000 km." LOL, so glad we can edit these comments. ^_^;;;;;; )