| Mapping Toolbox | |
Measuring the Planets
The Mapping Toolbox contains a function that provides almanac data on the major bodies of our solar system. Geophysical data, such as geoid vectors, radii, surface areas, and volumes, can be accessed for the Sun, the Earth's moon, and all of the planets, in any of the supported units of distance measurement.
Many planets have ellipsoidal geoid vectors available. Some planets return spherical geoid vectors only:
almanac('Earth','geoid','nauticalmiles') ans = 3443.92 0.08 almanac('mars','geoid','kilometers') ans = 3396.90 0.11 almanac('moon','geoid','statutemiles') ans = 1079.97 0
When a radius is desired, a scalar is returned representing the radius of the best spherical model of the planet. Notice that for a spherical model, the radius in radians is 1:
Surface areas and volumes are calculated based on a spherical model by default. In most cases, you can use the geoid model instead, and for the Earth, you can specify any of the supported geoid models. You can also request the actual tabulated values of the Earth:
almanac('mars','surfarea','kilometers','geoid') ans = 1.4441e+08 almanac('Earth','volume','kilometers','international') ans = 1.0833e+12 almanac('Earth','volume','kilometers','actual') ans = 1.0832e+12
For a complete description of available data, see the almanac function in the online Mapping Toolbox reference documentation.
| | The Geoid Model | Angles, Times, and Distances - Units and Notation | |