- #1
Deadstar
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Homework Statement
I'm trying to find out the mean motion of Halleys Comet using the equation.
[tex]n = \sqrt{\frac{GM}{a^3}}[/tex]
where we have taken the mass of Halleys comet to be negligible compared to the sun, M is the mass of the sun and a is the semi major axis.
The Attempt at a Solution
My question is what unit do I take a to be (i.e AU? m?). Nothing seems to give me an answer that makes sense.
And what units should n actually have? I seem to think it should be in revolutions per day but I'm not quite sure what the above formula is actually giving me. It would seem to be [tex]ms^{-1}[/tex] (or square root of, whatever that means...) if we take a in meters but then I get an answer of around [tex]2.6^10^{-9}[/tex] which is clearly wrong!
P.S. I'm a mathematician which is why I have zero grasp of units...