Q.A planet is revolving round the sun as shown in figure. At which point the velocity of the planet is maximum ?
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Start your 14-day free trial to unlock the full solution →Kepler's law of areas means a planet speeds up near the Sun and slows down far from it; velocity is maximum at the point of closest approach — here, point B.
Step 1 — Kepler's second law.
The line joining the Sun and a planet sweeps out equal areas in equal intervals of time: . This is a consequence of conservation of angular momentum about the Sun, since no external torque acts on the Sun-planet system (gravity is a central force).
Step 2 — Relating area-sweep rate to speed.
For a given small time interval, the swept area is (approximately) , where is the Sun-planet distance and is the planet's speed perpendicular to . Since is constant, must be constant along the orbit — so where is small, must be large, and vice versa.
Step 3 — Apply to the figure. …
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