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Keplers Laws Lab - 2024

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Kepler’s Laws Lab

This lab has three activities, each exploring one of Kepler’s Laws of Orbital Motion. Note that
each activity has Pre-Lab activities and questions to complete before collecting data.

Kepler’s Laws Activity: First Law

Learning Goals
● Explore how the velocity and position of a planet affect the shape of its orbit.
● Describe the characteristics of an ellipse and their relation to planetary
orbits.
● Relate geometric concepts with real life trajectories: solar system planets
and moons, as well as space missions and other astronomical systems.
● Discover how Kepler’s Laws apply for different bodies in the solar system

Pre-lab Activity
1. Draw the first five planetary orbits of the Solar System.

2. Suppose you want to send a space mission from Earth’s orbit to Mars. What
route do you think it should take? Draw it on your map above.

3. What are the possible shapes an orbit could have? Mark which of the
following shapes you think could be found in planetary orbits:

Shape Drawing Yes/No Reason (if you have one)


Circle

Triangle
Square
Ellipse
Rectangle
Parabola

Open Play
For this activity, we’ll be exploring only the First Law Screen.

Play with the PhET sim for 5 minutes: Kepler’s Laws - First Law. Play with the
settings to see what each illustrates. Click on different components of the
simulation diagram to see if you can drag them. Describe three main things you
have discovered that allow you to change things in the simulation:


Collect and Interpret Data

The boundaries of the Solar System:


1. Find all of the ways you can change a body’s orbit. Record your observations
in the table below

Action Effect on orbit shape and Sketch


size

Move body closer to the


star

a. What do all orbits have in common?

b. What variables affect the orbit’s shape? List all of them

2. Describe at least 3 ways to reach edge cases in the simulation (the orbit
becomes dashed and a warning message appears on screen). Write the
warning message and what you did to reach that orbit.
a.

b.

c.

3. In each of those situations, how would you get back to a stable orbit?
Eccentricity
Check the Eccentricity and Foci checkboxes and create different orbits. You should
see the panel below:

4. Changing the orbit, try to get the pink arrow to each object
label of the Eccentricity panel (see picture on the left).
Describe the process you used to achieve this.

5. Describe two ways to create two different orbits with the same eccentricity as
Eris.

6. Describe in your own words: What is eccentricity?

7. What observations can you make about the Foci related to Eccentricity?

How velocity affects the orbits


Restart the sim. For these challenges, move the velocity arrow only. This can
be done by clicking on the arrow and dragging it.
8. Discover how to create a circular orbit. Sketch the velocity vector below:
9. Create a highly eccentric orbit (eccentricity greater than 0.8) that doesn’t
escape or crash into the sun. What characteristics does the velocity have in
this scenario?

Mimicking the Solar System


For these challenges you can move the planet and alter its velocity. Check the
boxes for: Eccentricity, Foci, Axes, and Semiaxes. The values for the semi-major
axis (a), semi-minor axis (b), and the focal distance (c) will be shown below the
Eccentricity box at the left.

10. Use the ‘Target Orbit’ menu to recreate the orbits of the first 5 planets in
the solar system and fill the next table with their values

Target Focal
Semi-major Semi-minor
Orbit distance, c Eccentricity
axis, a (AU) axis, b (AU)
(AU)

11.Use these data which you recorded in the table to draw a more scale realistic
orbits of the first five planetary orbits of the Solar System

12.Look on the internet for the values of the other planets in the solar system,
what do you think they are not represented in the simulation?
13.Compare your drawing with the one in the pre-lab. Did you learn something
new about our solar system? Describe it

Synthesis of Kepler’s First Law

14.Look on the internet or in books the statement of Kepler’s first Law and write
it here:

a. Based on what you learned from this activity, try to explain this law to
an elementary school student using your own words. You can include
pictures and screenshots of the simulation!
Kepler’s Laws Activity: Second Law

Learning Goals
● Explore how the velocity and position of a planet affect the shape of its orbit.
● Visualize what is meant by “swept area of a planet’s orbit” and its relationship with equal
time intervals in the context of Kepler’s second Law.
● Describe the behavior of the planet's velocity in different moments of its orbit.

Pre-lab Activity
Look at the following image::

1. The picture represents an ellipse whose area


has been divided into 4 parts. Which of these
parts do you think has the greatest area?
Order them from least to greatest area.

2. This ellipse represents the orbit of the pink


planet moving around the yellow sun. In which
part of the orbit is the planet going to move
faster?

3. Order sections A, B, C and D according to the amount of time it will take the planet to go
through them.

4. Will there be a difference in the time it takes the planet to go through A+B versus D+C?
Open Play
Allow 5 min to play with the PhET sim. Kepler’s Laws - Second Law. Play with the settings to
see what each illustrates. Click on different components of the simulation diagram
to see if you can drag them. Describe three main things you have discovered that
allow you to change things in the simulation:


Collect and Interpret Data

Important Orbital Points

1. Activate these checkboxes and play with different orbits.


Then, define in your words what are periapsis and
apoapsis.

Periapsis is…

Apopasis is…

2. Look in the web for alternate names for these points, and how they are called in other
types of orbits:

Type of Orbit Name for Apoapsis Name for Periapsis

Orbit around the Sun

Orbit around the Earth

Other interesting orbit?


______________________

3. How does the velocity change when the planet is on periapsis versus apoapsis?

Synthesis of Kepler’s Second Law

4. Look on the internet or in books the statement of Kepler’s second Law and
write it here:

a. Based on what you learned from this activity, try to explain this law to an
elementary school student using your own words. You can include pictures and
screenshots of the simulation!
Kepler’s Laws Activity: Third Law

Learning Goals
● Explore the relationship between the semi-major axis and the period of an orbit, and
their corresponding powers described by the Kepler’s Third Law

Pre-lab Activity
[Note: While your textbook uses P to represent the period of an orbit, the simulation uses the
variable T instead. Anywhere you see T in the simulation or lab, it is representing the orbital
period.]

Distances in the orbit


Unlike the circle, drawing an arbitrary diameter is not enough to measure an ellipse. Instead, we
use two important lines called the axes, which are the smallest and biggest possible diameters
(minor and major axis respectively).

The most important measurement of an ellipse is certainly the semi-major axis represented
with the symbol a, which is the distance measured from the center to the border, along the
major axis. The name also indicates that its length is exactly half of the major axis.

1. In the above image, use a ruler to verify that the longest distance from the center is
indeed a.

2. Think of different shaped orbits. Is the orbital period related to any other property? List
the orbital elements you think influence the period.
Open Play
Allow 5 min to play with the PhET sim. Kepler’s Laws - Third Law. Play with the settings to
see what each illustrates. Click on different components of the simulation diagram
to see if you can drag them. Describe three main things you have discovered that
allow you to change things in the simulation:


Collect and Interpret Data

Measuring Periods
Now we will analyze how the Period of a planetary orbit is defined, and different ways to
measure it within the simulation.
1. Based on the behavior of the Period Tool, how would you define the period of an orbit?

2. Take multiple period measurements of the same orbit. Does the starting point alter the
measurement? Explain

3. Measure the period of a circular orbit, and compare with the period of more elliptical
orbits but with the same semi-major axis:
Type Period, T (years) Semi-major axis, a (AU)
Circular

Mildly Elliptical
Highly Elliptical

4. What’s your conclusion? Does eccentricity impact the period of an orbit? If so, in what
way?

5. Now let’s make period measurements for different orbits of the solar system. Then,
calculate the relation of T/a. For this, remember to use the ‘Target Orbit’ panel to
recreate real world orbits:

Semi- T/a
Period, T
major axis, (AU/years)
(years)
a (AU)
Mercury
Earth
Semi- T/a
Period, T
major axis, (AU/years)
(years)
a (AU)
Mars

6. Do you see any patterns of Period vs Semi-major axis?


a. Does the relation T/a change? How much?

b. For which planets is it bigger?

c. Draw the shape of the Graph shown in the simulation:

7. Find the combination of exponents for which the relation T/a remains constant
for all orbits. Include a screenshot or drawing of the graph, what shape does the graph
have now?

Period
power: Graph:

Semi-
major axis
power:

8. Find the equation of the curve that you just found.

9. Use the above equation to find out what the semi-major axis of Halley's Comet is,
knowing that its period is 76 years.

10. Suppose that NASA just discovered an asteroid orbiting the sun with a semi-major axis
of 3 AU. Can you use Kepler’s Third Law to calculate its period in years?

Changing Star Mass


11. Describe what happens to the relation T/a when the mass of the star changes.

12. Can you find the new equation for Kepler’s Third Law for a stellar system where the
star’s mass is twice as the sun’s?
Post-lab Activity
13. Look on the internet or in books the statement of Kepler’s first Law and write it here:

a. Based on what you learned from this activity, try to explain this law to an
elementary school student using your own words. You can include pictures and
screenshots of the simulation!

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