Planetary Motion-Kepler's Laws Flashcards
What is Kepler’s 1st Law?
the orbit of a planet around the sun is an ellipse with the sun at one focus. (the planet revolves around an ellipse)
What is Kepler’s 2nd Law?
An imaginary line sweeps from the sun to all of the planets in equal amounts of AREA and TIME
What is Kepler’s 3rd Law?
The farther you are from the sun, the more time it takes to get around it.
What is eccentricity?
The varying elliptical shape of earth’s orbit changes due to gravitational pull, causing seasons depending how close the earth is to sun
What is Perihelion?
point in a planet’s orbit that is closest to the sun -jan 3
What is Aphelion?
point in a planet’s orbit that is farthest from the sun -july 4
What is orbital velocity? How does this have to do this the cause of the seasons?
the velocity at which a body revolves around the other body. when it is winter, the earth moves around the sun faster leading to shorter days where in summer, it goes slower leading to longer daylight hours and longer days
What is the first cause of the seasons? Why?
Daylight hours
Longer the sun heats the earth, warmer it is. Summer solstice on 6/21 has most heating hours, so earth is warmer.
The earth’s tilt allows for the sun to be hitting different parts of the earth for either longer or shorter so when the sun is in the air for a longer amount of time it causes more daylight
What is the third cause of the seasons? Why?
Tilt of the earth
the tilt doesn’t change but earth’s position to the sun does because of tilt. earth’s axis is tilted, as it orbits the sun, so at the point when earth is tilted towards the sun, it is summer and vise versa regardless of the distance
What is the second cause of the seasons? Why? angle*
Angle of Insolation
because of the earths tilt, the sun shines on it at different angles at different times of the year- when there’s a higher angle and more direct sun, it will be summer
