IGCSE (9 – 1) PHYSICS

UNIT 8: ASTROPHYSICS

Chapter 26: Motion in the Universe

Class IX
Final Examination Curriculum
Contents:
 The Solar System & its features
 Moving in a circle
 Newton’s law of universal gravitation
 Weight, mass & gravitational field strength
 Orbital speed of planets, satellites, comets & asteroids

Prepared by:
Maple Leaf International School (July Session)
The planetary system we call home is located in an outer spiral arm of the Milky Way galaxy.

Our solar system consists of our star, the Sun, and everything bound to it by gravity – the planets Mercury,
Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, dwarf planets such as Pluto, dozens of moons and
millions of asteroids, comets and meteoroids.

Beyond our own solar system, there are more planets than stars in the night sky. So far, thousands of
planetary systems have been discovered orbiting other stars in the Milky Way, with more planets being
found all the time. Most of the hundreds of billions of stars in our galaxy are thought to have planets of their
own, and the Milky Way is but one of perhaps 100 billion galaxies in the universe.

The Solar System:

The Sun is our nearest star. It is a relatively small star when compared to other stars in the Universe. Our
Solar System contains the Sun and everything that orbits it.

Parts of the Solar System:

The main features of our Solar System are:

 The sun
 The eight planets
 The dwarf planets
 The moons
 Asteroids
 Comets

(i) The Sun: The Sun, the Earth's star, is the largest object in the Solar System and was the first to
form.

The Sun’s huge gravitational field keeps many other objects – planets, dwarf planets, asteroids
and comets – in orbit around it.

The Sun alone contains 99.8 % of the total mass of the Solar System.

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(ii) Planets: The Earth is one of eight planets in the Solar System. The planets orbit the Sun at
different distances.

The different planets have different properties and conditions. In general, as the distance from
the Sun increases:

 the temperature decreases, e.g. Mercury is 430°C whereas Neptune is -200°C;

 the time taken to orbit the Sun increases, e.g. Mercury orbits once every 88 Earth days,
but Neptune orbits once every 165 Earth years.
For a planet to form, its own gravity must be strong enough to make it round or spherical in
shape. Its gravitational field must also be strong enough to ‘clear the neighbourhood’, pulling
smaller nearby objects into its orbit.
The following sentence may help with remembering the order of the names of the planets from
the Sun outwards:
My Very Easy Method Just Speeds Up Naming

1. Mercury
2. Venus
3. Earth
4. Mars
5. Jupiter
6. Saturn
7. Uranus
8. Neptune
Astronomers have divided the planets into two groups of four:

 the four inner planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars), which are small, rocky, dense
planets, close to the Sun;
 the four outer planets (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune), which are large balls of gas,
far from the Sun. They are called the gas giants.

When the solar system formed, rocks (and other dense, heavy materials in the dust cloud such
as iron and uranium) tended to gather closer to the Sun, and these materials combined to form
the inner planets.

Lighter gaseous substances gathered together further away from the Sun and formed the outer
gas giants.

The planets take different amounts of time to go around the Sun. A single orbit is called the
planet's year, and the further out a planet is the longer its year takes.

The orbits of the planets in the solar system are almost circular or elliptical – with the Sun near
the centre.

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(iii) Dwarf Planets/Planetoids: These are objects orbiting a star, massive enough themselves to be
rounded by their own gravity but have not ‘cleared the neighbourhood’ of other objects. They
do not orbit other planets and so are not satellites.

Pluto is a dwarf planet and has a highly elliptical (eccentric) orbit. The gravitational field of Pluto
& other dwarf planets is not strong enough to clear the neighbourhood, so there may be other
objects in its orbit around the Sun.

The Solar System contains hundreds of dwarf planets, including Ceres (the only dwarf planet in
the asteroid belt).

(iv) Asteroids: The Solar System contains objects smaller than planets called asteroids. These orbit
the Sun in highly elliptical orbits, which are oval or egg-shaped and may take millions of years
to complete. Asteroids are made of metals and rocky material.

There are large numbers of asteroids orbiting the Sun in the asteroid belt between Mars and
Jupiter. The rocks in the asteroid belt may be remnants of a planet that failed to form due to the
strong gravitational attraction of Jupiter. There are also many in a region beyond Neptune called
the Kuiper Belt.

Asteroids can crash into each other. When they do, they may break apart and their orbit may
change.

The orbits of some asteroids cross the Earth's orbit. At various times during the Earth's history,
asteroids have hit the Earth. When this happened, a tremendous amount of energy was released,
throwing up billions of tonnes of dust. This huge dust cloud blocked heat and light from the Sun,
making the Earth very cold.

It is thought that this drop in temperature contributed to the extinction of dinosaurs. Scientists
worry that an asteroid could still hit the Earth and cause a global catastrophe.

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(v) Comets: The Solar System also contains small objects called comets that orbit around the Sun.
Comets are similar to asteroids, but are made of rocky material, dust and ice. As a comet
approaches the Sun, it begins to vaporize, which means that it turns into a gas. It then produces
a distinctive tail.

Comets orbit the Sun in highly elliptical (elongated) orbits that stretch beyond Neptune and pass
inside the orbit of Mercury. Their orbit periods are regular but vary from a few years to thirty
million years. Many comets pass far outside of the solar system.

A comet's orbit takes it very close to the Sun and then far away again. Comets are often visible
from Earth when they get close to the Sun, because the Sun's heat vaporizes some of the comet’s
frozen gases fromtheir surface, and this vapor forms a long tail that shines in the sunlight. These
tails can be millions of kilometers in length, which always points away from the Sun.

Perhaps the most famous of the comets is Halley's Comet, which visits our part of the Solar
System every 76 years. It was last visible from Earth in 1986.

Both asteroids and comets were formed early in the history of the solar system about 4.5 billion
years ago.

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(vi) Satellites and Moons:

A satellite is an object that orbits a planet. There are two types of satellite: natur al and artificial
(human-made).

Natural Satellites:

Moons are natural satellites that orbit a planet. Many planets have moons, and some planets
have many moons – Jupiter and Saturn each have more than 60 moons, whereas Mars has just
two. Many other moons are the natural satellites for other planets in our solar system and
beyond. All moons have circular orbits because of the gravitational forces between them and
their planet.

The Earth has just one moon – the Moon. It is the fifth largest moon in our Solar System,
approximately 340 000 km from Earth. Scientists believe that it was formed when a Mars-sized
planet collided with the early Earth, throwing some of the crust into orbit. However , the Moon
was formed; it is locked into the Earth’s gravitation field and orbits our planet once every 27.5
days.

Artificial Satellites:

Since the late 1950s, humans have been able to launch, and to put into orbit around the Earth,
objects known as artificial satellites. These objects are extremely useful. Some satellites are put
into a very high orbit above the Earth and are used to help us communicate over large distances,
e.g. for international phone calls or video links, the internet and so on. Some satellites are put
into a much lower orbit and are used to monitor in detail the Earth's surface, such as the
temperature of the world's oceans or the progress of forest fires.

Among other jobs, artificial satellites orbiting the Earth are used for:
 telecommunications (transmitting information between distant parts of the Earth)
 satellite navigation systems (‘satnav’)
 spying on other countries
 weather forecasts

Communications satellites occupy a geostationary orbit. They are in orbit above the equator at
just the right distance so that it takes them one day to complete an orbit. As a result, they always
appear in the same position when seen from the ground. This is why satellite television dishes
can be bolted into position and do not need to move.

Earth observation and monitoring satellites occupy polar orbits, passing over the North and
South poles, and crossing the equator twice during each orbit. The Earth spins beneath the
satellite as it moves, so the satellite can scan the whole surface of the Earth.

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Moving in a circle:

The diagram above shows a boy swinging a heavy ball around on a wire. To make this ball travel in a circle
he needs to spin around and at the same time pull on the wire. Without this continuous pulling force , the
ball will not travel in a circle. If the wire breaks or the boy releases the handle, the ball flies away.
To make & keep objects moving in a circle requires exerting a force that acts towards the centre of the
circular motion. The force that keeps pulling a rotating object towards the center of rotation is known as
centripetal force.
According to Newton’s third law of motion, an equal force must act on the rotating object, trying to pull it
away from the center of rotation. This equal & opposite force is called the centrifugal force.

When the forces on the object are balanced, the object continues to move in a circle at constant speed &
accelerates at the same time, covering the circumference of the circle at equal intervals of time.

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If the centripetal force is removed, e.g. the string holding the object snaps, the object moves off in a
tangential path to the circle.

Planets and comets travel around the Sun. Moons and satellites travel around the planets. For this to
happen there must be forces being applied to them. There is no string or wire to pull on as in the example
above, so where do these forces come from? In 1687, Isaac New1on suggested his theory of gravity to
explain these movements.
Newton suggested that between any two objects there is always a force of attraction. This attraction is due
to the masses of the objects. He called this force gravitational force.
Newton’s Law of Universal Gravitation:
According to Sir Isaac Newton:
“Every particle attracts every other particle in the universe with a force which is directly proportional to
the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between their centers.”
The size of this force depends on the masses of the objects & the distance between them:

 The greater the masses of the two objects, the stronger the attraction.
 Greater the distance between the two objects, lesser the attraction.
The law can be expressed as an equation given below.

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This equation indicates that gravitational forces between two celestial bodies obey an inverse square law,
i.e. if the distance between two objects doubles, the force between them becomes one-fourth of what
they were; if the distance between two objects trebles, the force between them becomes one-ninth of
what they were.
The effect of gravitational force between two objects due to their masses & the distance between them can
be summarized in the diagram below.

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The gravitational attraction between two objects with small masses is tiny. Only when one or both of the
objects have a very large mass – a moon or a planet – is the force of attraction obvious.
Our Sun is massive. It contains over 99% of the mass of the Solar System. The gravitational attraction
between this mass and the mass of each of the planets holds the Solar System together and causes the
planets to follow their curved/elliptical paths.
Those planets that are closest to the Sun (Venus, Mercury) feel the greatest attraction and so follow the
most elliptical paths. Planets that are the furthest from the Sun (Uranus, Neptune) feel the weakest pull
and follow the least elliptical path.
Weight, mass & gravitational field strength:
Mass is a measure of how much matter is in an object. Weight is force acting on that matter.

In physics, the term weight has a specific meaning, and is measured in newtons. Mass is measured in
kilograms. The mass of a given object is the same everywhere, but its weight can change.

The weight of an object is the force on it caused by the gravity due to the planet. The weight of an object
and the gravitational field strength are directly proportional. For a given mass, the greater the gravitational
field strength of the planet, the greater its weight.

Weight can be calculated using the equation:

weight = mass × gravitational field strength

This is when:

 weight (W) is measured in newtons (N)

 mass (m) is measured in kilograms (kg)
 gravitational field strength (g) is measured in newtons per kilogram (N/kg)

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Weight is the result of gravity. The gravitational field strength of the Earth is 10 N/kg, meaning that an
object with a mass of 1 kg would be attracted towards the centre of the Earth by a force of 10 N. Forces like
this are felt as weight.

Any object would weigh less on the Moon because the gravitational field strength of the Moon is one-sixth
of that of the Earth (1.6 N/kg). Other planets have different gravitational field strengths. On Mars, it is 3.8
N/kg. However, the mass would stay the same on all planets regardless of their gravitational field strengths.

Different planets have different masses & different radii:

 Larger the mass of the planet, greater the gravitational field strength,
 Larger the radius of the planet, smaller the gravitational field strength at the surface

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Orbital speeds of planets, satellites, comets & asteroids:

Gravity provides the force needed to maintain stable orbit of planets around a star and of moons and
artificial satellites around a planet.

For an object to remain in a steady, circular orbit it must be travelling at the right speed.

There are three possible outcomes:

(i) If the satellite is moving too quickly then the gravitational attraction between the Earth and the
satellite is too weak to keep it in orbit. If this is the case, the satellite will move off into space.
This occurs at speeds around or above 11,200 meters per second (m/s).

(ii) If the satellite is moving too slowly then the gravitational attraction will be too strong, and the
satellite will fall towards the Earth. This occurs at speeds around or below 7600 m/s.

(iii) A stable orbit is one in which the satellite’s speed is just right – it will not move off into space or
spiral into the Earth, but will travel around a fixed path.

Orbital period (T): time taken by a planet/satellite to complete one rotational orbit.

Orbital radius (R):

For planets, R = average distance from the Sun

For satellites, R = distance from surface of planet + radius of planet

Orbital Speed/velocity (v): the speed/velocity at which a planet orbits a star & a satellite orbits a planet.

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 The speed/velocity of orbit can be calculated using the formula:

The further a planet is from the sun:

 the slower it moves

 the more time it takes to complete an orbit

Mercury, the closest planet to the Sun, takes just 88 Earth days to complete an orbit, whereas Neptune, the
furthest out, takes 164 Earth years to complete an orbit.

The graph shows the distances of the planets from the Sun and the time it takes them to orbit once around
it. The shape of the curve shows that the further out a planet is the longer it takes to orbit the Sun.

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 When an object moves in a circle at a constant speed, its direction constantly changes. A change in direction
causes a change in velocity. This is because velocity is a vector quantity – it has an associated direction as
well as a magnitude. A change in velocity results in acceleration, so an object moving in a circle is
accelerating even though its speed may be constant.

An object will only accelerate if a resultant force acts on it. For an object moving in a circle, this resultant
force is the centripetal force that acts towards the middle of the circle. Gravitational attraction provides
the centripetal force needed to keep planets and all types of satellite in orbit.

The gravitational attraction between two objects decreases with distance. This means that the closer the
two objects are to each other, the stronger the force of gravity between them. If the force between them is
greater, a greater acceleration will occur.

The greater the acceleration, the greater the change in velocity – this causes the object to move faster. This
means that objects in small orbits travel faster than objects in large orbits. In order to change orbital speed,
an object must change the radius of its orbit at the same time, to maintain a stable orbit.

However, a comet or asteroid in an elliptical orbit does not move at a constant speed.

The gravitational pull of the Sun on a comet at A is not at right angles to its path. The force does two things:

 It deflects the comet towards the Sun and speeds it up.

 At C, the pull of the Sun slows the comet down again.
 At D, the comet has low kinetic energy but high gravitational potential energy.
 As the comet falls towards the Sun it increases its kinetic energy to a maximum at B, and decreases
its gravitational potential energy.

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Artificial satellites can be used for:

 Communications – satellite television and phone calls;

 Earth observation - including weather forecasting, tracking storms and pollution, spying and
satellite photography;
 Navigation - including the Global Positioning System (GPS);
 Astronomy – looking into outer space from our solar system.

Artificial satellites travel in one of two different orbits:

(i) Polar orbits: Polar orbits take the satellites over the Earth’s poles. The satellites travel very close
to the Earth (as low as 200 km above sea level), so they must travel at very high speeds (nearly
8,000 m/s). Polar orbits are often used for Earth-mapping, as well as for some weather satellites.

(ii) Geostationary orbits: Geostationary satellites take 24 hours to orbit the Earth, so the satellite
appears to remain in the same part of the sky when viewed from the ground. Geostationary
orbits are used for communication & broadcast satellites.

Geostationary orbits are of different types:

(a) High Earth orbit: These orbits are 36,000 km above the equator and the satellites travel at 3,000
m/s. These satellites are used for communications and weather forecasting.

(b) Medium Earth orbit: Satellites in medium Earth orbit are positioned about 20,000 km above the
Earth. They take about 12 hours to orbit and are used for GPS.
(c) Low Earth orbit: Satellites in low Earth orbit are positioned between 200 km and 2,000 km above
the Earth. They take between 1½ and 2 hours to orbit. Many orbit over the North and South Poles.
These polar orbit satellites can observe the whole of the Earth as it spins beneath them. The fastest
satellites travel at speeds of 7,600 m/s.

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 End of
Chapter 26: Motion in the Universe
End-of-chapter activities:
Study the chapter thoroughly (pages 259 – 264)
Practice problems:
Chapter Questions – page 264.
Unit Questions – page 275 – 276 (questions 1 through 6).

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