Projectile motion
Projectile motion is a form of motion experienced by an object or particle (a projectile) that is projected in a gravitational field, such as from Earth's surface, and moves along a curved path under the action of gravity only. In the particular case of projectile motion on Earth, most calculations assume the effects of air resistance are passive and negligible. The curved path of objects in projectile motion was shown by Galileo to be a parabola, but may also be a straight line in the special case when it is thrown directly upward or downward. The study of such motions is called ballistics, and such a trajectory is a ballistic trajectory. The only force of mathematical significance that is actively exerted on the object is gravity, which acts downward, thus imparting to the object a downward acceleration towards the Earth’s center of mass. Because of the object's inertia, no external force is needed to maintain the horizontal velocity component of the object's motion. Taking other forces into account, such as aerodynamic drag or internal propulsion (such as in a rocket), requires additional analysis. A ballistic missile is a missile only guided during the relatively brief initial powered phase of flight, and whose remaining course is governed by the laws of classical mechanics.
Ballistics (from Ancient Greek βάλλεινbállein 'to throw') is the science of dynamics that deals with the flight, behavior and effects of projectiles, especially bullets, unguided bombs, rockets, or the like; the science or art of designing and accelerating projectiles so as to achieve a desired performance.
The elementary equation of ballistics neglect nearly every factor except for initial velocity and an assumed constant gravitational acceleration. Practical solutions of a ballistics problem often require considerations of air resistance, cross winds, target motion, varying acceleration due to gravity, and in such problems as launching a rocket from one point on the Earth to another, the rotation of the Earth. Detailed mathematical solutions of practical problems typically do not have closed-form solutions, and therefore require numerical methods to address.
In projectile motion, the horizontal motion and the vertical motion are independent of each other; that is, neither motion affects the other. This is the principle of compound motion established by Galileo in 1638,[1] and used by him to prove the parabolic form of projectile motion.[2]
A ballistic trajectory is a parabola with homogeneous acceleration, such as in a space ship with constant acceleration in absence of other forces. On Earth the acceleration changes magnitude with altitude and direction with latitude/longitude. This causes an elliptic trajectory, which is very close to a parabola on a small scale. However, if an object was thrown and the Earth was suddenly replaced with a black hole of equal mass, it would become obvious that the ballistic trajectory is part of an elliptic orbit around that black hole, and not a parabola that extends to infinity. At higher speeds the trajectory can also be circular, parabolic or hyperbolic (unless distorted by other objects like the Moon or the Sun). In this article a homogeneous acceleration is assumed.
Since there is acceleration only in the vertical direction, the velocity in the horizontal direction is constant, being equal to . The vertical motion of the projectile is the motion of a particle during its free fall. Here the acceleration is constant, being equal to g.[note 1] The components of the acceleration are:
