Download Solar System

Date
Course Name
Instructor Name
Student(s) Name
Period, frequency, gravitational force, orbital
velocity and our solar system.
STUDENT OUTCOMES
Through this experiment, students will learn:
- The concepts of period and frequency and how they relate to
each other.
- About the gravitational force and how it applies to the planets of
our solar system.
- About orbital velocity and how it applies to the planets of solar
system.
- About some features of our solar system.
MATERIALS
Tablet PC Computer Laptop
Excel
Stop watch
Word
PRELIMINARIES
Refer to the following applet for this experiment:
http://www-astro.phast.umass.edu/courseware/java/planets/planets.html
Make sure to change the inclination from the default value (45) to
the new value (90).
IF there is any terms in this procedure that you do NOT recognize, make
sure to refer to your
BOOK
1. How long does the earth take to do one complete rotation around
the sun?
2. How long is the rotational period of the earth?
3. Is the gravitational force weak or strong? Justify (look at one
specific term of its definition to help answering this question).
4. Is the gravitational force between two massive objects, separated
by a certain distance, stronger or weaker if the distance is double? And
if so, by which factor?
PROCEDURE
1. The above applet shows
planets of our solar system.
Sun
Mercury
Venus
Earth
Earth’s moon
Mars
a simulation of the rotation of the inner
yellow
light blue
pink
blue
white
red
2. Imagine a horizontal line going through the sun. This will be your
reference to measure the period of the planets. For each planet, start
your stop watch when the planet is crossing your imaginary line, and
stop it when the planet has completed an entire cycle. One cycle is the
period of revolution. For the measurement of the earth moon, imagine
your horizontal line going through the earth (not the sun).
3. Create a table and include those data. Repeat the measurement for
each planet three times and calculate the average of those periods
(feel free to use excel to calculate the mean period values; refer to the
resources link on the website if you want to learn how).
Include your table here
4. Use a ruler and estimate the distance from the rotating object and
the object around which the rotation is made. Include those data in
your table.
5. Sort your data from the shortest distance to the highest distance,
and plot the period vs the distance.
Include your graph here
6. Based on your plot, what can you infer concerning the relationship
between period and distance?
7. For each of your average period, calculate the inverse of it. Include
those data in a new table that includes your new calculation and the
distances obtained above.
Include your table here
8. What is the unit of this new quantity? (This new quantity is called
the frequency, which is the number of cycles per unit of time)
9. Plot those frequencies vs the distance.
Include your graph here
10. Based on this graph, what can you conclude concerning the
relationship between frequency and distance?
11. Therefore, what can you conclude concerning the relationship
between period and frequency?
12. Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune are three other planets which are
even further away from the sun than the ones already studied. Since
the distance of those planets is even larger than the planets already
studied, what can you conclude about their period of rotation, and
about their rotational frequency? Is it larger or smaller than the
objects we have studied? (use your graph to answer these two
questions).
11. using the following resources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_(planet)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_(planet)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun
The relevant information are:
Semi-major axis (R)
Mass
(M)
Avg. Orbital Speed (value you want to compare with the one
calculated below)
and the following formula for the orbital velocity (which is the velocity
of an object for a rotational motion, in our case, the velocity at which
planets move through space to complete their rotation around the
sun).
v
GM sun
R
Where G is 6.67*10-11 Nm2/kg2, Msun is the mass of the sun, and R is
the distance between the sun and the rotating planet.
Calculate the orbital velocity of Venus and Mars. Venus is closer to the
sun than Venus is. Compare your value to the one given by the
Wikipedia website (Avg Orbital Speed) by calculating the percent error.
Is your calculation accurate? Pay special care to your units: i.e.
convert everything in SI (m,s,kg) units before evaluating. This
will ensure that your results for the orbital velocity is in m/s.
12. Based on those two orbital velocity, can you predict the orbital
velocity of a planet (Neptune), which is even further away from the
sun than Venus and Mars (don’t give a value, simply state whether the
orbital velocity is higher or lower and JUSTIFY).
13. Compute for both planets, Venus and Mars, the gravitational force
that is applied to them due to the sun. Pay special care to your
units: i.e. convert everything in SI (m,s,kg) units before
evaluating. This will ensure that your results for the force due
to gravitation is in Newton.
Similarly, can you predict the magnitude of the gravitational force of
another planet having a similar order of magnitude for its mass than
Venus and Mars if its distance to the sun is much greater? Justify.
F
GM sun M planet
R2
RESULTS
Make sure that your table and graph includes, label, units.
Make sure that you answer all questions and number them (if you
decide not to answer them in the procedure).
Show your work for all calculations.