Function File: referenceSphere (name, unit)

Return the parameters of the named spherical object.

Valid names are "Unit Sphere", "Sun", "Sun", "Mercury", "Venus", "Earth", "Moon", "Mars", "Jupiter", "Saturn", "Uranus", "Neptune", and "Pluto". Case is not important.

unit can be the name of any unit accepted by function validateLengthUnit.m. Also here case is not important.

The output consists of a scalar struct with fields "Name", "LengthUnit", "Radius", "SemimajorAxis", "SemiminorAxis", "InverseFlattening", "Eccentricity", "Flattening", "ThirdFlattening", "MeanRadius", "SurfaceArea", and "Volume".

Examples:

>> E = referenceSphere ()
E =

  scalar structure containing the fields:

    Name = Unit Sphere
    LengthUnit =
    Radius = 1
    SemimajorAxis = 1
    SemiminorAxis = 1
    InverseFlattening = Inf
    Eccentricity = 0
    Flattening = 0
    ThirdFlattening = 0
    MeanRadius = 1
    SurfaceArea = 12.566
    Volume = 4.1888

>> E = referenceSphere ("Earth", "km")
E =

  scalar structure containing the fields:

    Name = Earth
    LengthUnit = km
    Radius = 6371
    SemimajorAxis = 6371
    SemiminorAxis = 6371
    InverseFlattening = Inf
    Eccentricity = 0
    Flattening = 0
    ThirdFlattening = 0
    MeanRadius = 6371.0
    SurfaceArea = 5.1006e+08
    Volume = 1.0832e+12

See also: validateLengthUnit, referenceEllipsiod.

Package: mapping