Main Content

km2rad

Convert spherical distance from kilometers to radians

Description

rad = km2rad(km) converts distances from kilometers to radians, as measured along a great circle on a sphere with a radius of 6371 km, the mean radius of the Earth.

example

rad = km2rad(km,radius) converts distances from kilometers to radians, as measured along a great circle on a sphere having the specified radius.

rad = km2rad(km,sphere) converts distances from kilometers to radians, as measured along a great circle on a sphere approximating an object in the Solar System.

Examples

collapse all

How many radians does 1,000 km span on the Earth and on the Moon?

rad = km2rad(1000)
rad =

    0.1570
rad = km2rad(1000,'moon')
rad =

    0.5754

Input Arguments

collapse all

Distance in kilometers, specified as a numeric array.

Data Types: single | double

Radius of sphere in units of kilometers, specified as a numeric scalar.

Sphere approximating an object in the Solar System, specified as one of the following values: 'sun', 'moon', 'mercury', 'venus', 'earth', 'mars', 'jupiter', 'saturn', 'uranus', 'neptune', or 'pluto'. The value of sphere is case-insensitive.

Output Arguments

collapse all

Distance in radians, returned as a numeric array.

Data Types: single | double

Version History

Introduced in R2007a