Enceladus' mean radius is 252 km; Earth's Moon is 1738 km, so Enceladus is roughly 1/6 to 1/7 the size of Earth's Moon.
It takes Enceladus 1.37 days to orbit Saturn once; obviously it takes Earth's Moon about 28 days. The semi-major axis of the orbit of Enceladus is 238,000 km. Assuming circularity (this is a rough calculation), then the circumference of the orbit is 1,495,398 km - close enough to 1,500,000 km.
The semi-major axis of the Moon's orbit is 385,000 km, so the circumference of the orbit is about 2,420,000 km.
Orbital speed of Enceladus: 1,500,000 km/32.9 hours = 45,600 km/hr
Orbital speed of Earth's Moon: 2,420,000 km/672 hours = 3600 km/hr
Wow.
Thursday, December 29, 2011
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