Kepler's laws of planetary motion formula_16 The area enclosed by the elliptical orbit is formula_17 So the period formula_18 satisfies and the mean motion of the planet around the Sun satisfies This captures the relationship between the distance of planets from the Sun, and their orbital periods. Kepler enunciated in 1619 this third law in a laborious attempt to determine what he viewed as the "music of the spheres" according to precise laws, and express it in terms of musical notation. So it was known as the "harmonic law". Using Newton's Law of gravitation (published 1687), this relation can be found in the case of
Projectile motion Projectile motion Projectile motion is a form of motion experienced by an object or particle (a projectile) that is thrown near the Earth's surface and moves along a curved path under the action of gravity only (in particular, the effects of air resistance are assumed to be negligible). This curved path was shown by Galileo to be a parabola. The study of such motions is called ballistics, and such a trajectory is a "ballistic trajectory". The only force of significance that acts on the object is gravity, which acts downward, thus imparting to the object a downward acceleration. Because of