Name: Lab Day and Time:

Kepler’s Laws
1 The Motion of the Planets

In this prelab, we will look at the general orbital motion of the planets and some specific orbital data for two
inner planets – Earth and Mars. While this doesn’t explicitly mean that every orbit of every planet will
behave the same, it’s clearly a fine starting point for some observations. While astronomers were hoping to
figure out the orbital motion of the planets for a couple thousand years, you have the advantage of having
very good data to use for your observation, much like Kepler had with Tycho Brahe’s data.

2 Some Observations

First, some observations about the orbits of all eight planets. When seen from above the North Pole of the
Solar System (as defined by the North Pole of the Earth):
• All of the planets orbit the Sun in a counterclockwise direction.
• All of the planets (except for Venus and Uranus) spin on their axes in a counter-clockwise
direction. (Venus spins clockwise about its axis. Uranus has a rotation axis that is nearly 90
degrees to the plane of the orbits of the planets.)

Now, we’ll look specifically at Mars and Earth. Table 1 shows the orbital distance between Mars and the Sun
for one Martian year. (One Martian year is equivalent to 1.88 Earth years). There is no need to know the
specific angular orbital position for each of these data points in order to get something of an image for the
orbit of Mars.

Date Distance From Date Distance From
Sun (AU) Sun (AU)
1/1/03 1.6160 1/10/04 1.4865
2/15/03 1.5674 2/9/04 1.5255
3/2/03 1.5489 3/10/04 1.5634
4/15/03 1.4907 4/9/04 1.5977
5/15/03 1.4533 5/9/04 1.6264
6/14/03 1.4207 6/8/04 1.6479
7/14/03 1.3964 7/8/04 1.6614
8/13/03 1.3831 8/7/04 1.6661
9/12/03 1.3816 9/6/04 1.6620
10/12/03 1.3944 10/6/04 1.6492
11/11/03 1.4176 11/5/04 1.6282
12/11/03 1.4494 12/5/04 1.6001
` Table 1: Mars Orbital (Radius) Data

Question #1: What observations can you make about the orbit of Mars from the data in Table 1? What would
you say about the shape of the orbit of Mars? Is it round? Circular? Something else?

PH104: Descriptive Astronomy Page 1 of 6


Date Distance From Date Distance From
Sun (AU) Sun (AU)
1/1/03 0.9833 7/4/03 1.0167
1/25/03 0.9845 7/20/03 1.0162
2/2/03 0.9855 8/5/03 1.0145
2/26/03 0.9901 8/21/03 1.0117
3/14/03 0.9942 9/6/03 1.0081
3/30/03 0.9987 9/22/03 1.0039
4/15/03 1.0032 10/8/03 0.9993
5/1/03 1.0076 10/24/03 0.9948
5/17/03 1.0113 11/9/03 0.9906
6/2/03 1.0142 11/25/03 0.9873
6/18/03 1.0160 12/27/03 0.9835

` Table 2: Earth Orbital (Radius) Data

Table 2 shows the orbital distance between Earth and the Sun for one (Earth) year.

Question #2: What observations can you make about the orbit of Earth from the data in Table 2? What
would you say about the shape of the orbit of Earth? Is it round? Circular? Something else?

Question #3: How would you verify whether the orbits (Mars and Earth, for examples) were circular or
elliptical?

Question #4: Do your observations of Earth’s orbit match the observations that you made about Mars’
orbit?

PH104: Descriptive Astronomy Page 2 of 6

Table 3 shows another set of data about Mars and Earth, with more orbital information. In order to read this
data, we need to clear up the units of measure.

• 24 hour time (sometimes called military time) is set so that we start measuring time at 0:00:00.
This corresponds to 12:00 AM (midnight) on the (common) 12 hour clock.
• In 24 hour time, all times reference the time after midnight. So 1:20 PM in 12 hour time
would be 13:20 in 24 hour time.
• We can measure orbital position in different ways. We will use degrees:minutes.
- There are 360 degrees in a circle.
- There are 60 minutes in a degree.
• When measuring time there are: 60 seconds per minute, 60 minutes per hour, 24 hours per day,
and 365 days per year.
• In Table 3, orbital position is given in degrees:minutes, with fractional parts of full minutes. For
example, 81:5.675 means 81 degrees and 5.675 minutes.

Table 3: Mars and Earth Orbital Positions

PH104: Descriptive Astronomy Page 3 of 6

Question #5: From the data in table 3 you can find the orbital angular speed. How? What data would you
use to find the orbital angular speed? What calculation would you need to do? What would be your resulting
units of measure for orbital speed (in this case)?

Question #6: What is Kepler’s Second Law of Planetary Motion? What does it tell us about how orbital
speed depends on orbital distance (or radius)?

3 Predictions

One of the most important aspects of a scientific law is its predictive power. Based on previous knowledge,
some specific scientific model in this case, we should be able to make predictions. A prediction is not a blind
guess. When a scientist such as an astronomer makes predictions, they look at all of their prior experiences
with physics and astronomy. Using those experiences, they attempt to apply their model to the new data, and
predict what the outcome should be. If the data matsh the prediction, the model or law gets additional
supporting evidence of its validity. Sometimes the predictions are not quite right, leading to new findings and
moving our knowledge of nature forward.

Question #7: Based on Kepler’s Second Law of Planetary Motion, what would you predict you would find if
you performed the calculations to find orbital speeds when Mars is at different distances from the Sun?






4 Experimentation: Orbital Speed

Based on Kepler’s Second Law, you might have predicted that the data would show that at the times when
the orbital radius is the smallest, the orbital speed would be the greatest (or vice versa.) Lets do the data
analysis to verify or refute this. We have the needed data (Table 3), we just need to crunch some numbers.

1. You can calculate the speed at every point along the orbit. However, for this exercise, you’ll just
pick a couple of representative points.

2. You need to remember that speed is a change in distance divided by the change in time. To
calculate speed you need two points to define the start and end of some time interval.

PH104: Descriptive Astronomy Page 4 of 6

 3. You need to know how fast Mars is going when it is far from the Sun, and then compare this to
how fast it is going when it is near the Sun.

4. Looking at Table 3, you can see that (based on the given data points) Mars is closest to the Sun
between 08/09/03 and 09/08/03. You should also see that Mars is furthest from the Sun between
9/15/02 and 10/14/02. These are the two pairs of dates you will use.

5. If you look at the times in Table 3, you can see that the time separation between each data point is
the same. Since it is the same time interval for all points, all you need to do is find out if Mars
moved more distance between 08/09/03 and 09/08/03 or between 9/15/02 and 10/14/02. You can
think of it as a different kind of race – instead of timing the objects for the same distance, you can
measure the distance traveled for the same time. The object that travels farther must be traveling
the fastest.

6. You can figure out in which time interval Mars is going fastest by looking at when it covers the
greatest angular distance.

Question #8: Calculate the angular distance that Mars traveled between 08/09/03 and 09/08/03, compare
that to the angular distance that Mars traveled between 9/15/02 and 10/14/02. Which one of those distances
is the largest? (Show both calculations.) When is Mars moving the fastest, when it is closest or furthest from
the Sun?

5 Model Building

In all of science, we try to build up explanations of the universe. These explanations can come in the form of
words, equations, 3-d structures that we can manipulate, computer programs, or other forms. In science we
call these explanations models. Scientific models are constructed to explain nature. Models are constructed
out of the findings of our observations and experiments. Once we have a good model, we can apply it to
other areas. So what is our model of the motion of the planets?

Question #9: What should our model say about the shape of orbits? Which of Kepler’s Law tells us this?

Question #10: What should our model say about the speed of objects in orbit? Which of Kepler’s Law tells us
this?

PH104: Descriptive Astronomy Page 5 of 6

6 Conclusions

We have explored the motions of the planets Earth and Mars in their orbits. However, is our model right for
all orbiting objects or only Earth and Mars? We won’t be testing every planet but we will look at another
orbiting object in the Lab activity.

Make sure you have this PreLab complete when you come into lab. It is due at the start of lab.

PH104: Descriptive Astronomy Page 6 of 6