Kepler's third law states that, for a planet orbiting around the Sun, the ratio between the cube of the radius of the orbit and the square of the orbital period is a constant:
(1)
where
r is the radius of the orbit
T is the period
G is the gravitational constant
M is the mass of the Sun
Let's convert the radius of the orbit (the distance between the Sun and Neptune) from AU to meters. We know that 1 AU corresponds to 150 million km, so
so the radius of the orbit is
And if we re-arrange the equation (1), we can find the orbital period of Neptune:
We can convert this value into years, to have a more meaningful number. To do that we must divide by 60 (number of seconds in 1 minute) by 60 (number of minutes in 1 hour) by 24 (number of hours in 1 day) by 365 (number of days in 1 year), and we get
where
r is the radius of the orbit
T is the period
G is the gravitational constant
M is the mass of the Sun
Let's convert the radius of the orbit (the distance between the Sun and Neptune) from AU to meters. We know that 1 AU corresponds to 150 million km, so
so the radius of the orbit is
And if we re-arrange the equation (1), we can find the orbital period of Neptune:
We can convert this value into years, to have a more meaningful number. To do that we must divide by 60 (number of seconds in 1 minute) by 60 (number of minutes in 1 hour) by 24 (number of hours in 1 day) by 365 (number of days in 1 year), and we get