LAB4

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School

University of Nebraska, Omaha *

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Course

001

Subject

Astronomy

Date

May 2, 2024

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pdf

Pages

7

Uploaded by DeanRiverKudu24

ON LINE LAB 04 Nebraska Astronomy Applet Project Student Guide to the Planetary Orbit Simulator Background Material Answer the following questions after reviewing the “Kepler's Laws and Planetary Motion” and “Newton and Planetary Motion” background pages. Draw a line connecting each law on the left with a description of it on the right. Kepler’s 27¢ Law Kepler’s 3r Law ‘Question 1: When written as P? = a® Kepler's 3rd Law (with P in years and a in AU) is applicable to ... only a forceacting on an object can change its matio. planets move faster when close to the sun planets orbit the sun in dliptical paths planets with large orbits take 2 ong time to complete an orbi a) any object orbiting our sun. Lab 4 NAAP — Planetary Orbit Simulator 1/8 b) any object orbiting any star. @any object orbiting any other object. L — Scanned with CamScanner
Question 2: The ellipse to the right has an eccentricity of about ... Question 3: For a planet in an elliptical orbit to “sweep out equal areas in equal amounts of time” it must ... a) move slowest when near the sun. @move fastest when near the sun. d) have a perfectly circular orbit. Question 4: If a planet is twice as far from the sun at aphelion than at perihelion, then the strength of the gravitational force at aphelion will be as it is at perihelion. a) four times as much b) twice as much c) the same d) one halfas much @onc quarter as much Kepler's 1st Law If you have not already done so, launch the NAAP Planetary Orbit Simulator. e Open the Kepler’s 1 Law tab if it is not already (it’s open Tip: You can change by default). the valuc of a nlidcf by o Enable all 5 check boxes. clicking on the slider bar or by entering a o The white dot is the “simulated planet”. One can click on | number in the value box. it and drag it around. e Change the size of the orbit with the semimajor axis slider. Note how the background grid indicates change in scale while the displayed orbit size remains the same. o Change the cccentricity and note how it affects the shape of the orbit. Lah d NAAP - Planetary (Whit Simulatar 2/8 Scanned with CamScanner
Be aware that the ranges of several parameters are limited by practical issues that occur when creating a simulator rather than any true physical limitations. We have limited the semi-major axis to 50 AU since that covers most of the objects in which we are interested in our solar system and have limited eccentricity to 0.7 since the ellipses would be hard to fit on the screen for larger values. Note that the semi-major axis is aligned horizontally for all elliptical orbits created in this simulator, where they are randomly aligned in our solar system. o Animate the simulated planet. You may need to increase the animation rate for very large orbits or decrease it for small ones. o The planetary presets set the simulated planet’s parameters to those like our solar system’s planets. Explore these options. Question 5: For what eccentricity is the secondary focus (which is usually empty) located at the sun? What is the shape of this orbit? The shape is a circle E=0 Question 6: Create an orbit with a =20 AU and ¢ = 0. Drag the planet first to the far left of the ellipse and lhmto the far right. What are the values of r; and r at these locations? n (AU)—L r2(AU) 20 20 Far Left o Question 7: Create an orbit witha=20 AU and e =0.5. Drag the planet first to the far left of the ellipse and then to the far right. What are the values of r) and 2 at these locations? N LN N s [5—[—] Question 8: For the ellipse with a =20 AU and e = 0.5, can you find a point in the orbit where rj and r; are equal? Sketch the ellipse, the location of this point, and ry and r2 in the At this points rl and 12 are equal Lab 4 NAAP — Planetary Orbit Simulator 3/8 space below. Scanned with CamScanner
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