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The nautical mile (nmi) was originally defined as the arc length of a minute of latitude on a spherical Earth, so the actual Earth circumference is very near 21600nmi. A minute of arc is π/10800 of a radian. A second of arc, arcsecond (arcsec), or arc second, denoted by the symbol ″, [ 2 ] is 1/60 of an arcminute, 1/3600 of ...
Geographic coordinate conversion has applications in cartography, surveying, navigation and geographic information systems. In geodesy, geographic coordinate conversion is defined as translation among different coordinate formats or map projections all referenced to the same geodetic datum. [1] A geographic coordinate transformation is a ...
Time constant. In physics and engineering, the time constant, usually denoted by the Greek letter τ (tau), is the parameter characterizing the response to a step input of a first-order, linear time-invariant (LTI) system. [1][note 1] The time constant is the main characteristic unit of a first-order LTI system. It gives speed of the response.
λ = ν + λp, the Sun's true longitude on the ecliptic. The celestial sphere and the Sun's elliptical orbit as seen by a geocentric observer looking normal to the ecliptic showing the 6 angles (M, λp, α, ν, λ, E) needed for the calculation of the equation of time. For the sake of clarity the drawings are not to scale.
Graph showing the difference between UT1 and UTC. Vertical segments correspond to leap seconds. In about AD 140, Ptolemy, the Alexandrian astronomer, sexagesimally subdivided both the mean solar day and the true solar day to at least six places after the sexagesimal point, and he used simple fractions of both the equinoctial hour and the seasonal hour, none of which resemble the modern second. [8]
Angular diameter: the angle subtended by an object. The angular diameter, angular size, apparent diameter, or apparent size is an angular distance describing how large a sphere or circle appears from a given point of view. In the vision sciences, it is called the visual angle, and in optics, it is the angular aperture (of a lens).
Ordinarily calculating the fractional portion of the JD is straightforward; the number of seconds that have elapsed in the day divided by the number of seconds in a day, 86,400. But if the UTC timescale is being used, a day containing a positive leap second contains 86,401 seconds (or in the unlikely event of a negative leap second, 86,399 ...
Inversely, for calculating the distance where a body has to orbit in order to have a given orbital period T: a = G M T 2 4 π 2 3 {\displaystyle a={\sqrt[{3}]{\frac {GMT^{2}}{4\pi ^{2}}}}} For instance, for completing an orbit every 24 hours around a mass of 100 kg , a small body has to orbit at a distance of 1.08 meters from the central body's ...