Thursday, February 16, 2012

A planet orbits a distant star with the same mass as the Sun at an average distance of 110 million kilometers?

A newly discovered planet orbits a distant star with the same mass as the Sun at an average distance of 110 million kilometers. Its orbital eccentricity is 0.1.



Find the planet's orbital period?



Find the planet's nearest orbital distance from its star.



Find the planet's farthest orbital distance from its star.A planet orbits a distant star with the same mass as the Sun at an average distance of 110 million kilometers?The average distance is the semi-major axis. With that this question is a simple plug and play.



Formulas for closest and farthest distances:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apsis#Formu鈥?/a>



Formula for orbital period:

p^2 = a^3

Where p is the time in years and a is the distance in astronomical units (AU).

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