I read that in kepler's laws of planetary motion that angular momemtum is conserved...so my question is what is angular momentum???????????????

Dear Aditya

The angular momentum of a particle of mass m with respect to a chosen origin is given by

L = mvr sin θ

or more formally by the vector product

L = r x p

The direction is given by the right hand rule which would give L the direction out of the diagram. For an orbit, angular momentum is conserved, and this leads to one of Kepler's laws. For a circular orbit, L becomes

L = mvr

All the best.

AKASH GOYAL

AskiitiansExpert-IITD

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