Name: planet orbits as ellipses
Uploaded: 2025-05-22T09:05:41.000Z
Duration: 1 min 10 s
Channel: JoVE

K12 Standards

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North Carolina K-12 Science Standard Course of Study

9-12

Earth and Environmental Science

Earth's Place in the Universe

ESS.EES.1.1

Kepler's First Law of Planetary Motion

约翰内斯·开普勒在其第一定律中指出，每颗行星都沿椭圆轨道运行，太阳位于椭圆的一个焦点上。
在椭圆轨道中，行星距离太阳最近的点称为近日点 A，距离太阳最远的点称为远日点 B。行星到太阳的平均距离等于椭圆的半长轴。
在近日点时，由于距离 rA 小于距离 rB，行星的势能低于远日点时的势能。
根据能量守恒原理，行星在闭合轨道上的总能量是守恒的。因此，行星在近日点的动能高于在远日点的动能。
由于动能等于行星质量与其轨道速度平方乘积的一半，因此当行星在近日点靠近太阳时，其轨道运动速度加快；当远离太阳时，运动速度减慢。

开普勒的行星运动第一定律

17 世纪初，德国天文学家和数学家约翰内斯·开普勒提出了太阳系行星运动的三个定律。 他根据其祖先尼古拉斯·哥白尼和第谷·布拉赫的观察制定了前两条定律。
波兰天文学家尼古拉斯·哥白尼提出了一种理论，提出了太阳系的日心模型。 根据日心说，包括地球在内的所有行星都以圆形轨道绕太阳运行。
另一方面，约翰内斯·开普勒的雇主、丹麦天文学家第谷·布拉赫（Tycho Brahe）细致地记录了每颗行星的位置。 对于大多数可见行星，这些观测结果都符合哥白尼日心说，但火星除外。
在分析第谷·布拉赫的火星数据时，约翰内斯·开普勒意识到哥白尼理论是准确的，只是行星以椭圆轨道而不是圆形轨道绕太阳旋转。 这使他得出了第一条行星运动定律，该定律指出每个行星都沿着椭圆运动，而太阳位于椭圆的一个焦点。
椭圆是一个拉长的圆。 椭圆的伸长程度用称为偏心率的参数来表示。
<img alt="Equation1" src="/files/ftp_upload/12754/12754_Figure_1.png" style="text-align: center; height: 500px;" />
椭圆沿伸长方向的轴称为长轴a，垂直于它的轴称为短轴b。 因此，椭圆的偏心率可表示为
<img alt="Equation1" src="/files/ftp_upload/12754/12754_Equations_1.png" style="text-align: center; height: 50px;" />
自从b以来 a，椭圆的偏心率总是小于 1。 对于圆来说，a = b，因此圆的偏心率为零。
火星轨道的偏心率为0.0935。 它被认为是继水星之后最偏心率的轨道，其偏心率为0.21。 地球轨道的偏心率为0.0167。
由于行星处于椭圆轨道上，太阳位于其中一个焦点，因此它们的径向距离全年都会变化。 它们距太阳最近的距离称为近地点，而较远的距离称为远地点。
本文改编自 <a href="https://openstax.org/books/university-physicals-volume-1/pages/13-5-keplers-laws-of- 行星运动">Openstax，《大学物理》第 1 卷，第 13.5 节开普勒运动定律。</a>

17 世纪初，德国天文学家兼数学家约翰内斯·开普勒（Johannes Kepler）提出了太阳系行星运动的三大定律。他……

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物理学

Unit 1

第一单元

Gravitation

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KEY TERMS AND CONCEPTS

关键术语与概念

planet orbits as ellipses

Planet orbits are not perfect circles. Johannes Kepler used planet data from Tycho Brahe to show that each planet follows an ellipse, with the Sun at one focus. This idea came from studying Mars, which did not fit the circular path expected in the Copernican heliocentric model.

Copernicus had proposed that the solar system is heliocentric, meaning the Sun is at the center and the planets, including Earth, move around it. His model treated those paths as circles. Brahe later recorded the positions of the planets in great detail, and most of the visible planets matched the Copernican picture. Mars was the major exception.

An ellipse is an elongated circle. Its longest axis is the major axis, marked a, and the shorter axis across it is the minor axis, marked b. The amount of stretch is called eccentricity. Because b is less than a, the eccentricity of an ellipse is always less than 1, and a circle has an eccentricity of zero because its sides are equal.

Kepler’s orbit model also explains why a planet’s distance from the Sun changes during the year. The closest point is called perigee, and the farthest point is called apogee. Mars has an eccentricity of 0.0935, which is the most eccentric orbit after Mercury at 0.21. Earth’s orbit is much closer to a circle, with an eccentricity of 0.0167.

Planet Orbits as Ellipses

gravitation

Newton’s Law Behind Planet Motion

Newton’s law of gravitation links falling objects, the Moon’s orbit, and planetary motion. Before Newton, many people thought the sky and Earth followed different laws. Kepler later described the three laws of planetary motion, but their connection to a deeper force was still unclear. Isaac Newton made that connection in 1665 to 1666. He showed that the same phenomenon explains why objects fall to Earth and why the Moon moves around Earth. He also found that the Moon’s centripetal acceleration...

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newton's law of gravitation

Newton's Gravity and the Motion of Bodies

Newton's gravity links the fall of objects on Earth with the motion of the Moon and planets. People once thought the downward pull seen near Earth was unique to our planet. Later, Nicolaus Copernicus proposed the heliocentric theory, which placed Earth and the other planets around the Sun, with the Moon orbiting Earth. Isaac Newton connected these motions in the 17th century. He reasoned that the same attraction that keeps the Moon on its path around Earth also makes an apple fall from a tree.

gravitation between spherically symmetric masses

gravitation-between-spherically-symmetric-masses

Gravitational Potential Inside a Shell

Gravitational potential energy for spherically symmetric bodies depends on their masses and the distance between them. The idea is to treat each body as if its mass were concentrated at its center of mass. This makes the calculation easier for high school physics. A spherically symmetric mass can be thought of as many concentric spherical shells. Now place a point mass at a distance r from the center of one shell. Every particle on a given spherical ring is the same distance from that point...

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gravity between spherical bodies

Point-Mass Approximation in Spherical Gravity

Newton’s law of gravitation gives the force between two point masses. For large spherical objects, such as the Earth, the Moon, and other planets, the same law can be used by treating each body as if its mass were concentrated at its center. This idea can be proven by comparing gravitational potential energy. The transcript shows that a hollow sphere of mass M and a point mass m give the same energy result as two extended solid spherical objects. To set up the proof, a tiny ring on the shell...

reduced mass coordinates: isolated two-body problem

reduced-mass-coordinates-isolated-two-body-problem

Center of Mass in the Two-Body Problem

Reduced mass coordinates help simplify the classical two-body problem. In classical mechanics, this problem describes the motion of two interacting bodies under gravity or another central force. The key idea is that the system can be treated like a single-body problem when reduced mass is used. For this description, one body is imagined to move with the reduced mass while the other body is fixed in place with infinite mass. The reduced mass is a property of the two-body system and is defined...

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acceleration due to gravity on earth

Gravity on Earth: Mass, Direction, and Value

Gravity near Earth gives objects a downward acceleration called acceleration due to gravity. It comes from Earth’s gravitational pull and points toward the center of the Earth. Newton’s law of gravitation shows that the gravitational force depends on mass, while Newton’s second law shows that the acceleration produced by a force depends on how that force acts on the object. Because of this relationship, the acceleration due to gravity is independent of an object’s mass. An object and the Earth...

acceleration due to gravity on other planets

acceleration-due-to-gravity-on-other-planets

Measuring Gravity on Distant Planets

Gravity near Earth’s surface is measured as acceleration due to gravity. On Earth, students can test it with simple experiments. On other planets, that kind of direct experiment is not possible. Instead, astronomers use observations to find a planet’s gravity. They study how the planet affects nearby objects, especially its satellite. The key idea is that the acceleration depends on the planet’s gravity, not on the object’s mass. To make the calculation, scientists track a satellite’s path...

apparent weight and the earth's rotation

Earth's Spin and Apparent Weight

Earth’s spin changes how weight is measured on the surface. Because the Earth turns once every 24 hours, objects on the surface move in a circle. That motion requires a net centripetal force, which points toward the center of the circle. The north and south poles are the only exception. At the equator, the force that provides this inward pull comes from Earth’s gravity. It is the difference between an object’s true weight and the normal force from the ground. The normal force is the support...

variation in acceleration due to gravity near the earth's surface

variation-in-acceleration-due-to-gravity-near-the-earth-s-surface

How Earth’s Shape Affects Apparent Weight

Apparent weight changes slightly on Earth because of rotation and the planet’s shape. Apparent weight is the weight measured by a spring balance at a location. It is different from true weight, which is the force Earth pulls on an object with. Earth’s rotation reduces apparent weight by adding a centripetal force. Centripetal force is the inward force that keeps an object moving in a circle. The apparent weight equals the true weight minus this force. The difference depends on the square of...

potential energy due to gravitation

Gravitational Binding and Potential Energy

Gravitational potential energy describes how gravity stores energy between two masses. Because gravity is a conservative force, the work needed to move an object between two points depends on the starting and ending positions, not on the path taken. That is why a gravitational potential energy function can be written in terms of spatial coordinates. For a mass bound by gravity to another object, the potential energy is negative near the attracting body and rises toward zero as the distance...

the principle of superposition and the gravitational field

the-principle-of-superposition-and-the-gravitational-field

Adding Gravitational Forces with Superposition

Gravitational forces can be added using the principle of superposition. For objects that are sufficiently far apart, the net gravitational force on a point object is the vector sum of the forces from each mass. This means each force is found first, and then the forces are added as vectors. Superposition is useful because gravity from more than one object can combine in ways that are not always easy to see. One force may be increased or reduced by another force, or the final effect may be a...

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escape velocity

Launching a Satellite Beyond Gravity

Launching a satellite beyond gravity requires enough escape velocity to leave a planet or other body and never return. Escape velocity is the minimum initial speed needed to break free from the gravitational pull of an object that is holding the satellite in orbit or near its surface. For Earth, the idea is often shown with a satellite launched from the ground. The calculation assumes that no energy is lost to friction. In real life, Earth’s atmosphere also slows the satellite down, so the...

circular orbits and critical velocity for satellites

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Orbital Speed and Period in Circular Paths

Orbital speed and period in circular paths explain how the Moon, planets, and satellites stay in motion around larger bodies. The Moon orbits Earth. Earth and the other planets orbit the Sun. The space above our atmosphere also contains many artificial satellites. A circular orbit is the simplest orbit to study. It helps show how an object’s speed and its period, or the time for one full orbit, depend on where it is and what it circles. Nicolaus Copernicus first suggested that Earth and the...

energy of a satellite in a circular orbit

energy-of-a-satellite-in-a-circular-orbit

Satellite Orbits and Energy in Space

Satellite orbits and energy in space depend on altitude, orbit shape, and gravity. Thousands of artificial satellites circle Earth every day at many different distances. Satellites below 1,600 km are in low-Earth orbit, or LEO. Research satellites and Earth observation satellites are usually placed in LEO. They mostly move in elliptical orbits, which are oval-shaped paths. Navigation satellites are placed in medium-Earth orbit, or MEO, which ranges from 2,000 km to 36,000 km above Earth’s...

kepler's first law of planetary motion

Planet orbits are not perfect circles. Johannes Kepler used planet data from Tycho Brahe to show that each planet follows an ellipse, with the Sun at one focus. This idea came from studying Mars, which did not fit the circular path expected in the Copernican heliocentric model. Copernicus had proposed that the solar system is heliocentric, meaning the Sun is at the center and the planets, including Earth, move around it. His model treated those paths as circles. Brahe later recorded the...

kepler's second law of planetary motion

Kepler's Equal-Area Planet Motion

Kepler's second law explains how a planet moves faster and slower in its orbit around the Sun. Johannes Kepler, a German astronomer and mathematician in the early 17th century, developed three laws for planetary motion. His first law says that planets travel in elliptical orbits, with the Sun at one focus of the ellipse. Because the planet-Sun distance changes during the orbit, the planet does not move at the same speed all the time. In an elliptical orbit, the total energy of the planet is...

kepler's third law of planetary motion

Kepler’s Planet Distance Law

Kepler’s third law links a planet’s average distance from the Sun to the time it takes to orbit the Sun. This rule gives a clear mathematical relationship between orbital distance and orbital period, which is the time for one full revolution. Johannes Kepler developed this law in the early 17th century after building on the observations of Nicolaus Copernicus and Tycho Brahe. Kepler first formed his first two laws from those earlier observations. He later published the third law of planetary...

tidal forces

How the Moon Shapes Earth’s Tides

Earth’s ocean tides are driven by gravitational tidal forces. Scientists have studied the origin of tides for more than 2000 years, and Newton’s work marked the start of a proper understanding. These same tidal forces also act on other astronomical bodies. They can produce internal heat that leads to volcanic activity on Io, one of Jupiter’s moons, and they can tear apart stars that pass too close to black holes. Newton’s law of gravitation says that gravitational force is inversely...

schwarzschild radius and event horizon

Escape Velocity Limits and Black Holes

Escape velocity helps explain how black holes and event horizons form. It is the minimum speed a projectile needs to leave the surface of an object and eventually escape its gravitational field. In this context, escape velocity does not depend on the mass of the object being launched. The key idea is that no object with finite mass can move faster than the speed of light in a vacuum. When escape velocity is compared with that speed limit, the Schwarzschild radius becomes important. If an...

detection of black holes

How Astronomers Find Black Holes

Black holes are found through indirect astronomical evidence. They were first proposed in the 1920s, but they stayed outside observational astronomy until the 1970s. Their closest known cousins are neutron stars, which are made mostly of packed neutrons and are extremely dense. A neutron star can have the mass of the Sun while its diameter is only a few kilometers. Because of that, the escape velocity from its surface is close to the speed of light. Interest in black holes rose again in the...

principle of equivalence

Weightlessness and Einstein’s Equivalence

Weightlessness and Einstein’s equivalence principle are closely connected in gravity. A person in free fall under gravity, such as someone diving toward Earth from an airplane, would feel completely weightless. A person descending in a lift may feel partially weightless. The principle of equivalence says that an object in a uniform gravitational field and an object accelerating at a constant rate with no gravity are under the same experimental conditions. In other words, no experiment can tell...

space-time curvature and the general theory of relativity

space-time-curvature-and-the-general-theory-of-relativity

Einstein’s Gravity and Mercury’s Orbit

Einstein’s theory of gravity explains how space-time affects motion. In 1905, Einstein published his special theory of relativity. It says that no object can travel faster than the speed of light in a vacuum, which is the speed limit of the universe. Special relativity also changed the way scientists think about space and time. Two observers moving relative to each other do not agree on object length or on how time passes. Newton’s laws still work well for many cases, even for objects moving...

key terms and concepts

Learn how Kepler used Mars data to show that planets move in ellipses, not perfect circles, and why eccentricity changes a planet’s distance from the Sun.

Planet Orbits as Ellipses | JoVE K12

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JoVE Core Physics introduces the theory and application of fundamental physics topics, including kinematics, dynamics, fluid mechanics, statics, waves, and acoustics, with concise and easy-to-understand animated videos. Additionally, the scientist-in-action videos demonstrate the application of related concepts in classical and original research experiments performed in today's laboratories worldwide.

ESS.EES.1.2

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Motion and Stability- Forces and Interactions

PS.Phy.2.4

Pennsylvania State Academic Standards

Earth and Space Science

Space Systems

3.3.9-12.A

3.3.9-12.D

Weather and Climate

3.3.9-12.E

Louisiana Student Standards for Science

High School

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Earth’s Place In The Universe

HS-ESS1-1

HS-ESS1-2

HS-ESS1-3

HS-ESS1-4

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ES.2.c

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HS.E2U1.16

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HS+E.E2U1.14

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New Jersey Student Learning Standards for Science

Alabama Course of Study Science

9-12.ESS.1.2.a

9-12.ESS.1.2.d

9-12.ESS.1.3

Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills

Astronomy

112.48.c.9.

112.48.c.9.B.

Next Generation Science Standards

Earth’s Place in the Universe

Florida Department of Education

SC.912.E.5

SC.912.E.5.6

SC.912.E.5.10

SC.912.E.5.11

PHYS.5

PHYS.5.H

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South Carolina College and Career Ready Science Standards

Earth and Space Science (ESS)

E-ESS1-4.

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New York State Science Learning Standards

Earth and Space Sciences

HS-ESS1-4.

Georgia Standards of Excellence

SAST1

SAST1.1

In the early 17th century, German astronomer and mathematician Johannes Kepler postulated three laws for the motion of planets in the solar system. He ...

Kepler's Second Law of Planetary Motion

In the early 17th century, German astronomer and mathematician Johannes Kepler postulated three laws for the motion of planets in the solar system. His ...

Kepler's Third Law of Planetary Motion

In the early 17th century, German astronomer and mathematician Johannes Kepler postulated three laws for the motion of planets in the solar system. In ...

Detection of Black Holes

Although black holes were theoretically postulated in the 1920s, they remained outside the domain of observational astronomy until the 1970s.
Their ...

Tidal Forces

The origin of Earth&#39;s ocean tides has been a subject of continuous investigation for over 2000 years. However, the work of Newton is considered to be ...

Circular Orbits and Critical Velocity for Satellites

The Moon orbits around the Earth. In turn, the Earth (and other planets) orbit the Sun. The space directly above our atmosphere is filled with artificial ...

Gravity between Spherical Bodies

Newton&#39;s law of gravitation describes the gravitational force between any two point masses. However, for extended spherical objects like the Earth, ...

Use models to illustrate the formation of the solar system.

Uniform Circular Motion

Uniform circular motion is a specific type of motion in which an object travels in a circle with a constant speed. For example, any point on a propeller ...

Gyroscope: Precession

Precession can be demonstrated effectively through a spinning top. If a spinning top is placed on a flat surface near the surface of the Earth at a ...

simple-harmonic-motion-and-uniform-circular-motion

Simple Harmonic Motion and Uniform Circular Motion

While simple harmonic motion and uniform circular motion may be two separate concepts, they correlate and interlink with each other. Simple harmonic ...

Use mathematics and computational thinking to analyze Earth's motion through space.

Light as Energy

The energy required to carry out photosynthesis is light&#8212; typically electromagnetic radiation from the sun. The range of all possible wavelengths is ...

Nuclear Fusion

The process of converting very light nuclei into heavier nuclei is also accompanied by the conversion of mass into large amounts of energy, a process ...

First Law of Thermodynamics

The First Law of Thermodynamics states that energy cannot be created or destroyed, only transformed. This can be demonstrated within a classic food web ...

Energy Dynamics

The Food Chain
Energy is one of the most important abiotic factors in an ecosystem and organisms in an ecosystem are connected by the flow of energy and ...

Use models to illustrate how the sun produces energy.

ESS.EES.1.3

Explain how Earth's position relative to the sun influences conditions on Earth.

Planet Orbits as Ellipses

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