The Period of Revolution
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From the work of the students from the first year (1999/2000)
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From the work of the students from the second year (2000/2001)
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The time it takes a planet to complete one orbit of the Sun varies for each planet. The closer the planet is the Sun the faster it speeds along in its orbit, thus the closest planet completes an orbit sooner than any of the others. This we can see in the table below.
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Planets |
Periods of Revolution |
Comments |
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Mercury |
0.241 |
= 88 days |
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Venus |
0.615 |
= 224.7 days |
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Earth |
1.0 |
= 365.26 days |
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Mars |
1.88 |
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Asteroid in the Belt |
approx. 5 |
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Jupiter |
11.9 |
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Saturn |
29.3 |
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Uranus |
84 |
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Neptune |
165 |
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Pluto |
248 |
Revolution (to revolve) means the motion of an object around an other object, such as
- the Earth revolves around the Sun
- the Moon revolves around the Earth
- Jupiter revolves around the Sun
- Phobos (a moon) revolves around Mars.
Rotation (to rotate) means the motion of an object around an axis passing through or near its center, such as
- the Earth rotates once a day
- the Sun rotates every 26 days
- the Moon rotates every 27 a days
- Saturn rotates every 10 ½ hours.
Using a formula expression of a version of Kepler's Third Law of Planetary Motion
where p is the period of revolution of the planet in years, d is the distance from the Sun to the planet in miles, and 8.965 x 1011 is the conversion factor for the formula.
The teams were able to determine a period of revolution of 5.2 years for the new planet around the Sun.
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Mr. Jeffrey Hopkins explains to the Silver Team
how Johannes Kepler found
a method for determining the period of revolution of a distant planet.
The animated GIF above is by Stephen Philpott.
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© 2000 Jeffrey Lynn Hopkins & MTC Last edited Tuesday, September 05, 2000 03:15:21 PM |