Perimeter of Ellipse

[Valentin Albillo]

(12-04-2019 05:30 PM)Gerson W. Barbosa Wrote:  The error in the lenght of the orbit of Pluto should be less than 5 meters when using that approximation, if my calculation is correct.

Your calculation may be correct but I seriously doubt the orbital parameters for Pluto are actually known to such precision, most especially since the orbit's semi-major axis is some 5.90638 billion km, i.e.: 5.90638 trillion meters.

An error "less than 5 meters" in such huge value seems unrealistic from a purely physical point of view. From a purely mathematical point of view, that's another matter and your error estimation may be correct, though again the orbit's eccentricity is not known to high accuracy either (~0.2488, quite large when compared with the much more circular orbit of Earth, say).

Regards.
V.