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rad2km

Convert spherical distance from radians to kilometers

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Syntax

km = rad2km(rad)
km = rad2km(rad,radius)
km = rad2km(rad,sphere)

Description

km = rad2km(rad) converts distances from radians to kilometers, as measured along a great circle on a sphere with a radius of 6371 km, the mean radius of the Earth.

example

km = rad2km(rad,radius) converts distances from radians to kilometers, as measured along a great circle on a sphere having the specified radius.

km = rad2km(rad,sphere) converts distances from radians to kilometers, as measured along a great circle on a sphere approximating an object in the Solar System.

example

Examples

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Open Live Script

Find the circumference of the Earth in kilometers. By default, the rad2km function assumes your input is a measurement of the Earth, which is represented as sphere with a radius of 6371 kilometers.

km = rad2km(2*pi)
km = 
4.0030e+04
Open Live Script

Find the circumference of Mars in kilometers.

km = rad2km(2*pi,'mars')
km = 
2.1300e+04

Input Arguments

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Distance in radians, 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

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Distance in kilometers, returned as a numeric array.

Data Types: single | double

Version History

Introduced in R2007a

See Also

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