Kepler's Laws

Johannes Kepler, working with data painstakingly collected by Tycho Brahe

without the aid of a telescope, developed three laws which described the
motion of the planets across the sky.
1. The Law of Orbits: All planets move in elliptical orbits, with the sun at one
focus.
2. The Law of Areas: A line that connects a planet to the sun sweeps out equal
areas in equal times.
3. The Law of Periods: The square of the period of any planet is proportional
to the cube of the semimajor axis of its orbit.
Kepler's laws were derived for orbits around the sun, but they apply to
satellite orbits as well.
Index

Gravity
concepts

Orbit
concepts

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The Law of Orbits
All planets move in elliptical orbits, with the sun
at one focus.

This is one of Kepler's laws. The elliptical shape of the orbit is a result of
the inverse square force of gravity. The eccentricity of the ellipse is greatly
exaggerated here.
Describing an ellipse

Index

Gravity
concepts

Orbit
concepts

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Orbit Eccentricity
The eccentricity of an ellipse can be defined as the ratio of the distance

between the foci to the major axis of the ellipse. The eccentricity is
zero for a circle. Of the planetary orbits, only Pluto has a large
eccentricity.
Eccentricity examples


Index

Gravity
concepts

Orbit
concepts

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Examples of Ellipse Eccentricity

Planetary orbit eccentricities
Mercury .206
Venus .0068
Earth .0167
Mars .0934
Jupiter .0485
Saturn .0556
Uranus .0472
Neptune .0086
Pluto .25

Outer planets


Index

Gravity
concepts

Orbit
concepts

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The Law of Areas
A line that connects a planet to the sun sweeps
out equal areas in equal times.

This is one of Kepler's laws.This empirical law discovered by Kepler
arises from conservation of angular momentum. When the planet is
closer to the sun, it moves faster, sweeping through a longer path in a
given time.
Index

Gravity
concepts

Orbit
concepts

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The Law of Periods
The square of the period of any planet is
proportional to the cube of the semimajor axis of
its orbit.

This is one ofKepler's laws.This law arises from thelaw of gravitation.
Newton first formulated the law of gravitation from Kepler's 3rd law.


Kepler's Law of Periods in the above form is an approximation that serves
well for the orbits of the planets because the Sun's mass is so dominant. But
more precisely the law should be written

In this more rigorous form it is useful for calculation of the orbital period of
moons or other binary orbits like those of binary stars.
Table of data

Index

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concepts

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concepts

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Data: Law of Periods
Data confirming Kepler's Law of Periods comes from measurements of the
motion of the planets.
Planet
Semimajor
axis
(10
10
m)
Period
T (y)
T
2
/a
3

(10
-34
y
2
/m
3
)
Mercury 5.79 0.241 2.99
Venus 10.8 0.615 3.00
Earth 15.0 1 2.96
Mars 22.8 1.88 2.98
Jupiter 77.8 11.9 3.01
Saturn 143 29.5 2.98
Uranus 287 84 2.98
Neptune 450 165 2.99
Pluto 590 248 2.99
Data from Halliday, Resnick, Walker, Fundamentals of Physics 4th Ed
Extended. Table 15-3
Index

Gravity
concepts

Orbit
concepts

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The Law of Orbits
All planets move in elliptical orbits, with the sun
at one focus.

This is one of Kepler's laws. The elliptical shape of the orbit is a result of
the inverse square force of gravity. The eccentricity of the ellipse is greatly
exaggerated here.
Describing an ellipse

Index

Gravity
concepts

Orbit
concepts

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Orbit Eccentricity
The eccentricity of an ellipse can be defined as the ratio of the distance

between the foci to the major axis of the ellipse. The eccentricity is
zero for a circle. Of the planetary orbits, only Pluto has a large
eccentricity.
Eccentricity examples


Index

Gravity
concepts

Orbit
concepts
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Examples of Ellipse Eccentricity

Planetary orbit eccentricities
Mercury .206
Venus .0068
Earth .0167
Mars .0934
Jupiter .0485
Saturn .0556
Uranus .0472
Neptune .0086
Pluto .25

Outer planets


Index

Gravity
concepts

Orbit
concepts

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The Law of Areas
A line that connects a planet to the sun sweeps
out equal areas in equal times.

This is one of Kepler's laws.This empirical law discovered by Kepler
arises from conservation of angular momentum. When the planet is
closer to the sun, it moves faster, sweeping through a longer path in a
given time.
Index

Gravity
concepts

Orbit
concepts

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The Law of Periods
The square of the period of any planet is
proportional to the cube of the semimajor axis of
its orbit.

This is one ofKepler's laws.This law arises from thelaw of gravitation.
Newton first formulated the law of gravitation from Kepler's 3rd law.


Kepler's Law of Periods in the above form is an approximation that serves
well for the orbits of the planets because the Sun's mass is so dominant. But
Index

Gravity
concepts

Orbit
concepts
more precisely the law should be written

In this more rigorous form it is useful for calculation of the orbital period of
moons or other binary orbits like those of binary stars.
Table of data


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Data: Law of Periods
Data confirming Kepler's Law of Periods comes from measurements of the
motion of the planets.
Planet
Semimajor
axis
(10
10
m)
Period
T (y)
T
2
/a
3

(10
-34
y
2
/m
3
)
Mercury 5.79 0.241 2.99
Venus 10.8 0.615 3.00
Earth 15.0 1 2.96
Mars 22.8 1.88 2.98
Jupiter 77.8 11.9 3.01
Index

Gravity
concepts

Orbit
concepts
Saturn 143 29.5 2.98
Uranus 287 84 2.98
Neptune 450 165 2.99
Pluto 590 248 2.99
Data from Halliday, Resnick, Walker, Fundamentals of Physics 4th Ed
Extended. Table 15-3

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The Law of Orbits
All planets move in elliptical orbits, with the sun
at one focus.

This is one of Kepler's laws. The elliptical shape of the orbit is a result of
the inverse square force of gravity. The eccentricity of the ellipse is greatly
exaggerated here.
Describing an ellipse

Index

Gravity
concepts

Orbit
concepts

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Orbit Eccentricity
The eccentricity of an ellipse can be defined as the ratio of the distance

between the foci to the major axis of the ellipse. The eccentricity is
zero for a circle. Of the planetary orbits, only Pluto has a large
eccentricity.
Eccentricity examples


Index

Gravity
concepts

Orbit
concepts

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Examples of Ellipse Eccentricity

Planetary orbit eccentricities
Mercury .206
Venus .0068
Earth .0167
Mars .0934
Jupiter .0485
Saturn .0556
Uranus .0472
Neptune .0086
Pluto .25

Index

Gravity
concepts

Orbit
concepts
Outer planets



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The Law of Areas
A line that connects a planet to the sun sweeps
out equal areas in equal times.

This is one of Kepler's laws.This empirical law discovered by Kepler
arises from conservation of angular momentum. When the planet is
closer to the sun, it moves faster, sweeping through a longer path in a
given time.
Index

Gravity
concepts

Orbit
concepts
Go Back
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The Law of Periods
The square of the period of any planet is
proportional to the cube of the semimajor axis of
its orbit.

This is one ofKepler's laws.This law arises from thelaw of gravitation.
Newton first formulated the law of gravitation from Kepler's 3rd law.


Kepler's Law of Periods in the above form is an approximation that serves
well for the orbits of the planets because the Sun's mass is so dominant. But
more precisely the law should be written

In this more rigorous form it is useful for calculation of the orbital period of
moons or other binary orbits like those of binary stars.
Table of data

Index

Gravity
concepts

Orbit
concepts

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Lagrange Points of the Earth-Moon
System
A mechanical system with three objects, say the Earth, Moon and Sun,
constitutes a three-body problem. The three-body problem is famous in both
mathematics and physics circles, and mathematicians in the 1950s finally
managed an elegant proof that it is impossible to solve. However,
approximate solutions can be very useful, particularly when the masses of the
three objects differ greatly.
For the Sun-Earth-Moon system, the Sun's mass is so dominant that it can be
treated as a fixed object and the Earth-Moon system treated as a two-body
system from the point of view of a reference frame orbiting the Sun with that
system. 18th century mathematicians Leonhard Euler and Joseph-
Louis Lagrangediscovered that there were five special points in this rotating
reference frame where a gravitational equilibrium could be maintained. That
is, an object placed at any one of these five points in the rotating frame would
stay there, with the effective forces with respect to this frame canceling. Such
an object would then orbit the Sun, maintaining the same relative position
with respect to the Earth-Moon system. These five points were
named Lagrange points and numbered from L1 to L5.

The Lagrange points L4 and L5 constitute stable equilibrium points, so
that an object placed there would be in a stable orbit with respect to the
Earth and Moon. With small departures from L4 or L5, there would be
an effective restoring force to bring a satellite back to the stable point.
The L5 point was the focus of a major proposal for a colony in "The High
Frontier" by Gerard K. O'Neill and a major effort was made in the 1970's to
work out the engineering details for creating such a colony. There was an
active "L5 Society" that promoted the ideas of O'Neill. The L4 and L5 points
make equilateral triangles with the Earth and Moon.
The Lagrange points L1, L2 and L3 would not appear to be so useful because
they are unstable equilibrium points. Like balancing a pencil on its point,
keeping a satellite there is theoretically possible, but any perturbing influence
will drive it out of equilibrium. However, in practice these Lagrange points
have proven to be very useful indeed since a spacecraft can be made to
execute a small orbit about one of these Lagrange points with a very small
expenditure of energy. They have provided useful places to "park" a
spacecraft for observations. These orbits around L1 and L2 are often called
"halo orbits". L3 is on the opposite side of the Sun from the Earth, so is not so
easy to use. It might be a good place to hide something, since we never see it
Index

Orbit
concepts

Reference
Klarreich
- fertile ground for science fiction!
The Lagrange point L2 has been used for the Wilkinson Microwave
Anisotropy Probe (WMAP). L2 is positioned outside the Earth's orbit so that
the WMAP can always face away from both the Sun and the Earth, an
important feature of a deep-space probe so that it can employ ultra-sensitive
detectors without the danger of them being "blinded' by looking at the Sun or
the Earth.

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Three-Body Equipotential Surfaces
A mechanical system with three objects, say the Earth, Moon and Sun,
constitutes a three-body problem. The three-body problem is famous in
both mathematics and physics circles, and mathematicians in the 1950s
finally managed an elegant proof that it is impossible to solve. However,
approximate solutions can be very useful, particularly when the masses of
the three objects differ greatly.
One of the contributions of Lagrange was to plot contours of
equal gravitational potential energy for systems where the third mass was
very small compared to the other two. Below is a sketch of such
equipotential contours for a system like the Earth-Moon system. The
equipotential contour that makes a figure-8 around both masses is
important in assessing scenarios were one partner loses mass to the other.
These equipotential loops form the basis for the concept of the Roche lobe.

Contours of Equal Gravitational Potential
One of Lagrange's observations from the potential contours was that there
were five points at which the third body could be at equilibrium, points
which are now referred to as Lagrange points.

The Lagrange Points for a system like the Earth-Moon system
The Lagrange points L
1
, L
2
, and L
3
are unstable equilibrium points. Like
standing a pencil on its point, it is possible to achieve equilbrium, but any
displacement away from that equilibrium would lead to forces that take it
further away from equilibrium. Remarkably, the Lagrange points L
4
and
L
5
are stable equilibrium points for the small mass in the three-body system
and this three-body geometry could be maintained as M
2
orbited about M
1
.
Earth-Moon Lagrange Points

Index

Orbit
concepts

Reference
KaufmannCh
17

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Joseph Louis Lagrange
Lagrange was and 18th century mathematician who tackled the famous
"three-body problem" in the late 1700s. The problem cannot be solved
exactly, but he found that in the case where the third body is very small
compared to the other two, some useful approximate solutions could be
found.
Index

Orbit
concepts

Reference
KaufmannCh
17

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Escape Velocity
If the kinetic energy of an object launched from the Earth were equal in
magnitude to the potential energy, then in the absence of friction resistance it
could escape from the Earth.
Escape velocity from the Earth


If M = M
Earth


and r = r
Earth


then v
escape
= m/s

v
escape
= km/hr
v
escape
= mi/hr.
This data corresponds to a surface gravitational acceleration of
g = m/s
2

g = g
Earth
.

Orbit velocity and escape velocity

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Orbit Velocity and Escape Velocity
If the kinetic energy of an object m
1
launched from the a planet of mass
M
2
were equal in magnitude to the potential energy, then in the absence of
friction resistance it could escape from the planet. The escape velocity is
given by

To find the orbit velocity for a circular orbit, you can set the gravitational
forceequal to the required centripetal force.

Note that the orbit velocity and the escape velocity from that radius are
related by

Index

Energy
concepts

Gravity
concepts

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