The acceleration due to gravity changes as we move away from Earth, and the expression for gravitational potential energy must reflect this change. The total energy of a system is the sum of kinetic a...The acceleration due to gravity changes as we move away from Earth, and the expression for gravitational potential energy must reflect this change. The total energy of a system is the sum of kinetic and gravitational potential energy, and this total energy is conserved in orbital motion. Objects with total energy less than zero are bound; those with zero or greater are unbounded.
The acceleration due to gravity changes as we move away from Earth, and the expression for gravitational potential energy must reflect this change. The total energy of a system is the sum of kinetic a...The acceleration due to gravity changes as we move away from Earth, and the expression for gravitational potential energy must reflect this change. The total energy of a system is the sum of kinetic and gravitational potential energy, and this total energy is conserved in orbital motion. Objects with total energy less than zero are bound; those with zero or greater are unbounded.
But the total energy at the surface is simply the potential energy, since it starts from rest. [Note that we do not use Equation ??? at the surface, since we are not in orbit at the surface.] T...But the total energy at the surface is simply the potential energy, since it starts from rest. [Note that we do not use Equation ??? at the surface, since we are not in orbit at the surface.] The kinetic energy can then be found from the difference in the total energy change and the change in potential energy found in Example 13.4.1.
