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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.