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deg2nm

Convert spherical distance from degrees to nautical miles

Description

example

nm = deg2nm(deg) converts distances from degrees to nautical miles, as measured along a great circle on a sphere with a radius of 3440.065 nautical miles, the mean radius of the Earth.

nm = deg2nm(deg,radius) converts distances from degrees to nautical miles, as measured along a great circle on a sphere having the specified radius.

nm = deg2nm(deg,sphere) converts distances from degrees to nautical miles, as measured along a great circle on a sphere approximating an object in the Solar System.

Examples

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One degree of arc length is about 60 nautical miles, using a spherical model of the Earth.

deg2nm(1)
ans =

   60.0405

This is not true on Mercury, of course.

deg2nm(1,'mercury')
ans =

   22.9852

Input Arguments

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Distance in degrees, specified as a numeric array.

Data Types: single | double

Radius of sphere in units of nautical miles, specified as a numeric scalar.

Sphere approximating an object in the Solar System, specified as one of the following values: 'sun', 'moon', 'mercury', 'venus', 'earth', 'mars', 'jupiter', 'saturn', 'uranus', 'neptune', or 'pluto'. The value of sphere is case-insensitive.

Output Arguments

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Distance in nautical miles, returned as a numeric array.

Data Types: single | double

Version History

Introduced in R2007a