Kepler's 3 Laws of Planetary
Motion
Orbital Elements: Properties required to uniquely specify a
particular orbit. The following are of most concern:
P -
period: The time required
for a secondary body to complete one orbit.
a -
semimajor axis: Greatest
distance from the center of an ellipse to its periphery (the radius for a circle).
e -
eccentricity: A measure of
an ellipse’s noncircularity, or the type of "conic section" one is
referring to.
i -
inclination: The angle
between the body’s orbital plane and some other reference frame (usually the
Earth’s orbital plane for Solar System studies).
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