What is the name of the mathematical formula that was used to show planets' distances from the Sun?

Question

It was used before telescopes and man-made satellites got the exact measurements. How does it work?

Answer 1

Bode,Titus law.
Take numbers 0,3,6,12,24,48,96,192.Add 4 to each.Taking earths distance from sun as 10, this series gives planets distance from Sun.
This gives mercury 4,Venus 7,Earth,10,mars 16,jupiter28,Saturn 100,Uranus 198etc....the distance in astronomical units from planets to sun
Chandramohan

Answer 2

I really not sure this will answer your question, but, it give a basic concept;
The distance to the Moon was determined by first finding the size of the Moon relative to the size of the Earth. This determination of the relative sizes of the Earth and Moon predated the estimate of the absolute size of the Earth due to Eratosthenes and was first carried out by Aristarchus of Samos (310-230 BC). Once again a model is required to make the determination of the relative sizes of the Earth and Moon, in particular a good model for what is taking place during a lunar eclipse. It was surmised that during a lunar eclipse the full Moon is passing through the shadow of the Earth. Aristarchus timed how long the Moon took to travel through Earth's shadow and compared this with the time required for the Moon to move a distance equal to its diameter (this could be done by timing how long a bright star in obscured by the Moon). He found that the shadow was about 8/3 the diameter of the Moon. The model is extended from the above because we need to add the Moon:
http://www.astro.washington.edu/labs/eratosthenes/rung2.html

Answer 3

Since I have no idea how to do this, I looked for a formula and found Kepler's 3rd Law:

Calculating Planet Distances from the Sun Using Kepler’s 3rd Law
Using Kepler’s 3rd law formula: p2 = a3
where p is the orbital period in earth-years and a is the average distance from the sun in astronomical
units (A.U.’s), use the data in the following table to calculate the average distance of each planet from
the sun in MILES and then convert to KILOMETERS.
(Now, aren’t you glad you asked Santa for that graphing, scientific calculator for Christmas!
Planet Orbital period (days) Ave. dist. From Sun (miles) Ave. dist. (km)
Mercury 88
Venus 225
Earth 365
Mars 687
Jupiter 4329
Saturn 10,753
Uranus 30,660
Neptune 60,152
Pluto 90,739
Hints: --Change orbital period in days to earth years using 365 days=1 year.
--Convert answers in A.U.’s to miles by using 1 A.U. = 93,000,000 miles.
--Convert miles to km using 1 mile – 1.61 kilometers.
Sample Problem: Planet X (fictitious planet beyond Pluto) has been found to have an orbital period of
95,000 days. Find its average distance from the sun in miles and kilometers.
95,000 days/365 days per year = 260.27 years = orbital period = p
p2 = 260.27 x 260.27 = 67,740
p2 = a3
…therefore, the cube root of 67,740 = a
a = cube root of 67,740 = 40.76 A.U.’s
40.76 A.U.’s x 93,000,000 = 3,790,680,000 miles (= 3.79 x 109 miles)
3,790,680,000 miles X 1.61 km per mile = 6102994800 km = 6.1 x 109 km

Answer 4

Ew chi squares... Evolution is extremely observable whilst tinkering with H-W equillibrium... my AP biology classification as quickly as did a lab the place specific genotypes have been chosen against, and the allele frequencies replaced incredibly surprisingly after countless generations.

Answer 5

The only thing I can come up with is Keplers Laws.

Kepler's Laws of Planetary Motion
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Kepler portrait Johaness Kepler (lived 1571--1630 C.E.) was hired by Tycho Brahe to work out the mathematical details of Tycho's version of the geocentric universe. Kepler was a religious individualist. He did not go along with the Roman Catholic Church or the Lutherans. He had an ardent mystical neoplatonic faith. He wanted to work with the best observational data available because he felt that even the most elegant, mathematically-harmonious theories must match reality. Kepler was motivated by his faith in God to try to discover God's plan in the universe---to ``read the mind of God.'' Kepler shared the Greek view that mathematics was the language of God. He knew that all previous models were inaccurate, so he believed that other scientists had not yet ``read the mind of God.''

Since an infinite number of models are possible (see Plato's Instrumentalism above), he had to choose one as a starting point. Although he was hired by Tycho to work on Tycho's geocentric model, Kepler did not believe in either Tycho's model or Ptolemy's model (he thought Ptolemy's model was mathematically ugly). His neoplatonic faith led him to choose Copernicus' heliocentric model over his employer's model

Kepler tried to refine Copernicus' model. After years of failure, he was finally convinced with great reluctance of an revolutionary idea: God uses a different mathematical shape than the circle. This idea went against the 2,000 year-old Pythagorean paradigm of the perfect shape being a circle! Kepler had a hard time convincing himself that planet orbits are not circles and his contemporaries, including the great scientist Galileo, disagreed with Kepler's conclusion. He discovered that planetary orbits are ellipses with the Sun at one focus. This is now known as Kepler's 1st law.

An ellipse is a squashed circle that can be drawn by punching two thumb tacks into some paper, looping a string around the tacks, stretching the string with a pencil, and moving the pencil around the tacks while keeping the string taut. The figure traced out is an ellipse and the thumb tacks are at the two foci of the ellipse. An oval shape (like an egg) is not an ellipse: an oval tapers at one end, but an ellipse is tapered at both ends (Kepler had tried oval shapes but he found they did not work).

There are some terms I will use frequently in the rest of this book that are used in discussing any sort of orbit. Here is a list of definitions:

1. Major axis---the length of the longest dimension of an ellipse.
2. Semi-major axis---one half of the major axis and equal to the distance from the center of the ellipse to one end of the ellipse. It is also the average distance of a planet from the Sun at one focus.
3. Minor axis---the length of the shortest dimension of an ellipse.
4. Perihelion---point on a planet's orbit that is closest to the Sun. It is on the major axis.
5. Aphelion---point on a planet orbit that is farthest from the Sun. It is on the major axis directly opposite the perihelion point. The aphelion + perihelion = the major axis.
6. Focus---one of two special points along the major axis such that the distance between it and any point on the ellipse + the distance between the other focus and the same point on the ellipse is always the same value. The Sun is at one of the two foci (nothing is at the other one). The Sun is NOT at the center of the orbit!

As the foci are moved farther apart from each other, the ellipse becomes more eccentric (skinnier). See the figure below. A circle is a special form of an ellipse that has the two foci at the same point (the center of the ellipse).
7. The eccentricity (e) of an ellipse is a number that quantifies how elongated the ellipse is. It equals 1 - (perihelion)/(semi-major axis). Circles have an eccentricity = 0; very long and skinny ellipses have an eccentricity close to 1 (a straight line has an eccentricity = 1). The skinniness an ellipse is specified by the semi-minor axis. It equals the semi-major axis × Sqrt[(1 - e2)].

Planet orbits have small eccentricities (nearly circular orbits) which is why astronomers before Kepler thought the orbits were exactly circular. This slight error in the orbit shape accumulated into a large error in planet positions after a few hundred years. Only very accurate and precise observations can show the elliptical character of the orbits. Tycho's observations, therefore, played a key role in Kepler's discovery and is an example of a fundamental breakthrough in our understanding of the universe being possible only from greatly improved observations of the universe.

Most comet orbits have large eccentricities (some are so eccentric that the aphelion is around 100,000 AU while the perihelion is less than 1 AU!). The figure above illustrates how the shape of an ellipse depends on the semi-major axis and the eccentricity. The eccentricity of the ellipses increases from top left to bottom left in a counter-clockwise direction in the figure but the semi-major axis remains the same. Notice where the Sun is for each of the orbits. As the eccentricity increases, the Sun's position is closer to one side of the elliptical orbit, but the semi-major axis remains the same.

To account for the planets' motion (particularly Mars') among the stars, Kepler found that the planets must move around the Sun at a variable speed. When the planet is close to perihelion, it moves quickly; when it is close to aphelion, it moves slowly. This was another break with the Pythagorean paradigm of uniform motion! Kepler discovered another rule of planet orbits: a line between the planet and the Sun sweeps out equal areas in equal times. This is now known as Kepler's 2nd law.

Later, scientists found that this is a consequence of the conservation of angular momentum. The angular momentum of a planet is a measure of the amount of orbital motion it has and does NOT change as the planet orbits the Sun. It equals the (planet mass) × (planet's transverse speed) × (distance from the Sun). The transverse speed is the amount of the planet's orbital velocity that is in the direction perpendicular to the line between the planet and the Sun. If the distance decreases, then the speed must increase to compensate; if the distance increases, then the speed decreases (a planet's mass does not change).

Finally, after several more years of calculations, Kepler found a simple, elegant equation relating the distance of a planet from the Sun to how long it takes to orbit the Sun (the planet's sidereal period). (One planet's sidereal period/another planet's sidereal period)2 = (one planet's average distance from Sun/another planet's average distance from Sun)3. If you compare the planets to the Earth (with an orbital period = 1 year and a distance = 1 A.U.), then you get a very simple relation: (a planet's sidereal period in years)2 = (semimajor axis of its orbit in A.U.)3. This is now known as Kepler's 3rd law. A review of exponents and square roots is available in the mathematics review appendix.

For example, Mars' orbit has a semi-major axis of 1.52 A.U., so 1.523 = 3.51 and this equals 1.872. The number 1.87 is the number of years it takes Mars to go around the Sun. This simple mathematical equation explained all of the observations throughout history and proved to Kepler that the heliocentric system is real. Actually, the first two laws were sufficient, but the third law was very important for Isaac Newton and is used today to determine the masses of many different types of celestial objects. Kepler's third law has many uses in astronomy! Although Kepler derived these laws for the motions of the planets around the Sun, they are found to be true for any object orbiting any other object. The fundamental nature of these rules and their wide applicability is why they are considered ``laws'' of nature.

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Select the image to show an animation of Kepler's 3 laws.

A nice java applet for Kepler's laws is available on the web (select the link to view it in another window).

The UNL Astronomy Education program's Planetary Orbit Simulator allows you to manipulate the various parameters in Kepler's laws to understand their effect on planetary orbits (link will appear in a new window).