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JoyGodLives OP t1_iyf1rkp wrote

Reply to comment by RSwordsman in ELI5 if a plane flew really high then hovered for 24hrs, would it rotate with the earth, or would it be able to watch the land rotate? by JoyGodLives

Oh, that sounds interesting. Just going to find out what orbital velocity means..(don't judge!)

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krista t1_iyf2dox wrote

”orbital velocity” is the speed and direction you need to go to continuously fall and always miss the ground.

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JoyGodLives OP t1_iyf32lp wrote

Ooh, I much prefer your definition than Wikipedia's. Good one!

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krista t1_iyf4rmz wrote

based off the late, great douglas adams.

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RSwordsman t1_iyf2ixa wrote

All good, I first internalized the difference for real after playing Kerbal Space Program. It starts off measuring your velocity relative to the surface, where 0 meters per second means you're not moving with respect to the ground. But get high up enough and it measures your speed by how fast you actually go around the planet, not respective of the spin. It makes a huge difference for space travel. *A geostationary satellite is traveling at some orbital velocity but its surface velocity would be zero.

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