Chapter 3 Orbits and Gravity 69

3
ORBITS AND GRAVITY

Figure 3.1 International Space Station. This space habitat and laboratory orbits Earth once every 90 minutes. (credit: modification of work by
NASA)

Chapter Outline
3.1 The Laws of Planetary Motion
3.2 Newton’s Great Synthesis
3.3 Newton’s Universal Law of Gravitation
3.4 Orbits in the Solar System
3.5 Motions of Satellites and Spacecraft
3.6 Gravity with More Than Two Bodies

Thinking Ahead
How would you find a new planet at the outskirts of our solar system that is too dim to be seen with the
unaided eye and is so far away that it moves very slowly among the stars? This was the problem confronting
astronomers during the nineteenth century as they tried to pin down a full inventory of our solar system.

If we could look down on the solar system from somewhere out in space, interpreting planetary motions would
be much simpler. But the fact is, we must observe the positions of all the other planets from our own moving
planet. Scientists of the Renaissance did not know the details of Earth’s motions any better than the motions
of the other planets. Their problem, as we saw in Observing the Sky: The Birth of Astronomy, was that they
had to deduce the nature of all planetary motion using only their earthbound observations of the other planets’
positions in the sky. To solve this complex problem more fully, better observations and better models of the
planetary system were needed.
70 Chapter 3 Orbits and Gravity

3.1 THE LAWS OF PLANETARY MOTION

Learning Objectives
By the end of this section, you will be able to:

Describe how Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler contributed to our understanding of how planets move
around the Sun
Explain Kepler’s three laws of planetary motion

At about the time that Galileo was beginning his experiments with falling bodies, the efforts of two other
scientists dramatically advanced our understanding of the motions of the planets. These two astronomers were
the observer Tycho Brahe and the mathematician Johannes Kepler. Together, they placed the speculations of
Copernicus on a sound mathematical basis and paved the way for the work of Isaac Newton in the next century.

Tycho Brahe’s Observatory

Three years after the publication of Copernicus’ De Revolutionibus, Tycho Brahe was born to a family of Danish
nobility. He developed an early interest in astronomy and, as a young man, made significant astronomical
observations. Among these was a careful study of what we now know was an exploding star that flared up to
great brilliance in the night sky. His growing reputation gained him the patronage of the Danish King Frederick
II, and at the age of 30, Brahe was able to establish a fine astronomical observatory on the North Sea island of
Hven (Figure 3.2). Brahe was the last and greatest of the pre-telescopic observers in Europe.

Figure 3.2 Tycho Brahe (1546–1601) and Johannes Kepler (1571–1630). (a) A stylized engraving shows Tycho Brahe using his instruments to
measure the altitude of celestial objects above the horizon. The large curved instrument in the foreground allowed him to measure precise
angles in the sky. Note that the scene includes hints of the grandeur of Brahe’s observatory at Hven. (b) Kepler was a German mathematician
and astronomer. His discovery of the basic laws that describe planetary motion placed the heliocentric cosmology of Copernicus on a firm
mathematical basis.

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Chapter 3 Orbits and Gravity 71

At Hven, Brahe made a continuous record of the positions of the Sun, Moon, and planets for almost 20 years.
His extensive and precise observations enabled him to note that the positions of the planets varied from those
given in published tables, which were based on the work of Ptolemy. These data were extremely valuable, but
Brahe didn’t have the ability to analyze them and develop a better model than what Ptolemy had published. He
was further inhibited because he was an extravagant and cantankerous fellow, and he accumulated enemies
among government officials. When his patron, Frederick II, died in 1597, Brahe lost his political base and
decided to leave Denmark. He took up residence in Prague, where he became court astronomer to Emperor
Rudolf of Bohemia. There, in the year before his death, Brahe found a most able young mathematician,
Johannes Kepler, to assist him in analyzing his extensive planetary data.

Johannes Kepler
Johannes Kepler was born into a poor family in the German province of Württemberg and lived much of his
life amid the turmoil of the Thirty Years’ War (see Figure 3.2). He attended university at Tubingen and studied
for a theological career. There, he learned the principles of the Copernican system and became converted to
the heliocentric hypothesis. Eventually, Kepler went to Prague to serve as an assistant to Brahe, who set him
to work trying to find a satisfactory theory of planetary motion—one that was compatible with the long series
of observations made at Hven. Brahe was reluctant to provide Kepler with much material at any one time for
fear that Kepler would discover the secrets of the universal motion by himself, thereby robbing Brahe of some
of the glory. Only after Brahe’s death in 1601 did Kepler get full possession of the priceless records. Their study
occupied most of Kepler’s time for more than 20 years.

Through his analysis of the motions of the planets, Kepler developed a series of principles, now known as
Kepler’s three laws, which described the behavior of planets based on their paths through space. The first two
laws of planetary motion were published in 1609 in The New Astronomy. Their discovery was a profound step in
the development of modern science.

The First Two Laws of Planetary Motion

The path of an object through space is called its orbit. Kepler initially assumed that the orbits of planets were
circles, but doing so did not allow him to find orbits that were consistent with Brahe’s observations. Working
with the data for Mars, he eventually discovered that the orbit of that planet had the shape of a somewhat
flattened circle, or ellipse. Next to the circle, the ellipse is the simplest kind of closed curve, belonging to a family
of curves known as conic sections (Figure 3.3).

Figure 3.3 Conic Sections. The circle, ellipse, parabola, and hyperbola are all formed by the intersection of a plane with a cone. This is why such
curves are called conic sections.
72 Chapter 3 Orbits and Gravity

You might recall from math classes that in a circle, the center is a special point. The distance from the center to
anywhere on the circle is exactly the same. In an ellipse, the sum of the distance from two special points inside
the ellipse to any point on the ellipse is always the same. These two points inside the ellipse are called its foci
(singular: focus), a word invented for this purpose by Kepler.

This property suggests a simple way to draw an ellipse (Figure 3.4). We wrap the ends of a loop of string around
two tacks pushed through a sheet of paper into a drawing board, so that the string is slack. If we push a pencil
against the string, making the string taut, and then slide the pencil against the string all around the tacks, the
curve that results is an ellipse. At any point where the pencil may be, the sum of the distances from the pencil
to the two tacks is a constant length—the length of the string. The tacks are at the two foci of the ellipse.

The widest diameter of the ellipse is called its major axis. Half this distance—that is, the distance from the
center of the ellipse to one end—is the semimajor axis, which is usually used to specify the size of the ellipse.
For example, the semimajor axis of the orbit of Mars, which is also the planet’s average distance from the Sun,
is 228 million kilometers.

Figure 3.4 Drawing an Ellipse. (a) We can construct an ellipse by pushing two tacks (the white objects) into a piece of paper on a drawing
board, and then looping a string around the tacks. Each tack represents a focus of the ellipse, with one of the tacks being the Sun. Stretch the
string tight using a pencil, and then move the pencil around the tacks. The length of the string remains the same, so that the sum of the
distances from any point on the ellipse to the foci is always constant. (b) In this illustration, each semimajor axis is denoted by a. The distance 2a
is called the major axis of the ellipse.

The shape (roundness) of an ellipse depends on how close together the two foci are, compared with the major
axis. The ratio of the distance between the foci to the length of the major axis is called the eccentricity of the
ellipse.

If the foci (or tacks) are moved to the same location, then the distance between the foci would be zero. This
means that the eccentricity is zero and the ellipse is just a circle; thus, a circle can be called an ellipse of zero
eccentricity. In a circle, the semimajor axis would be the radius.

Next, we can make ellipses of various elongations (or extended lengths) by varying the spacing of the tacks (as
long as they are not farther apart than the length of the string). The greater the eccentricity, the more elongated
is the ellipse, up to a maximum eccentricity of 1.0, when the ellipse becomes “flat,” the other extreme from a
circle.

The size and shape of an ellipse are completely specified by its semimajor axis and its eccentricity. Using Brahe’s
data, Kepler found that Mars has an elliptical orbit, with the Sun at one focus (the other focus is empty). The
eccentricity of the orbit of Mars is only about 0.1; its orbit, drawn to scale, would be practically indistinguishable
from a circle, but the difference turned out to be critical for understanding planetary motions.

Kepler generalized this result in his first law and said that the orbits of all the planets are ellipses. Here was a
decisive moment in the history of human thought: it was not necessary to have only circles in order to have an
acceptable cosmos. The universe could be a bit more complex than the Greek philosophers had wanted it to be.

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Chapter 3 Orbits and Gravity 73

Kepler’s second law deals with the speed with which each planet moves along its ellipse, also known as its
orbital speed. Working with Brahe’s observations of Mars, Kepler discovered that the planet speeds up as it
comes closer to the Sun and slows down as it pulls away from the Sun. He expressed the precise form of this
relationship by imagining that the Sun and Mars are connected by a straight, elastic line. When Mars is closer to
the Sun (positions 1 and 2 in Figure 3.5), the elastic line is not stretched as much, and the planet moves rapidly.
Farther from the Sun, as in positions 3 and 4, the line is stretched a lot, and the planet does not move so fast.
As Mars travels in its elliptical orbit around the Sun, the elastic line sweeps out areas of the ellipse as it moves
(the colored regions in our figure). Kepler found that in equal intervals of time (t), the areas swept out in space
by this imaginary line are always equal; that is, the area of the region B from 1 to 2 is the same as that of region
A from 3 to 4.

If a planet moves in a circular orbit, the elastic line is always stretched the same amount and the planet moves
at a constant speed around its orbit. But, as Kepler discovered, in most orbits that speed of a planet orbiting its
star (or moon orbiting its planet) tends to vary because the orbit is elliptical.

Figure 3.5 Kepler’s Second Law: The Law of Equal Areas. The orbital speed of a planet traveling around the Sun (the circular object inside the
ellipse) varies in such a way that in equal intervals of time (t), a line between the Sun and a planet sweeps out equal areas (A and B). Note that
the eccentricities of the planets’ orbits in our solar system are substantially less than shown here.

Kepler’s Third Law

Kepler’s first two laws of planetary motion describe the shape of a planet’s orbit and allow us to calculate the
speed of its motion at any point in the orbit. Kepler was pleased to have discovered such fundamental rules, but
they did not satisfy his quest to fully understand planetary motions. He wanted to know why the orbits of the
planets were spaced as they are and to find a mathematical pattern in their movements—a “harmony of the
spheres” as he called it. For many years he worked to discover mathematical relationships governing planetary
spacing and the time each planet took to go around the Sun.

In 1619, Kepler discovered a basic relationship to relate the planets’ orbits to their relative distances from the
Sun. We define a planet’s orbital period, (P), as the time it takes a planet to travel once around the Sun. Also,
recall that a planet’s semimajor axis, a, is equal to its average distance from the Sun. The relationship, now
known as Kepler’s third law, says that a planet’s orbital period squared is proportional to the semimajor axis of
its orbit cubed, or

P2 ∝ a3
When P (the orbital period) is measured in years, and a is expressed in a quantity known as an astronomical
unit (AU), the two sides of the formula are not only proportional but equal. One AU is the average distance
74 Chapter 3 Orbits and Gravity

between Earth and the Sun and is approximately equal to 1.5 × 108 kilometers. In these units,

P2 = a3
Kepler’s third law applies to all objects orbiting the Sun, including Earth, and provides a means for calculating
their relative distances from the Sun from the time they take to orbit. Let’s look at a specific example to illustrate
how useful Kepler’s third law is.

For instance, suppose you time how long Mars takes to go around the Sun (in Earth years). Kepler’s third law can
then be used to calculate Mars’ average distance from the Sun. Mars’ orbital period (1.88 Earth years) squared,
or P2, is 1.882 = 3.53, and according to the equation for Kepler’s third law, this equals the cube of its semimajor
axis, or a3. So what number must be cubed to give 3.53? The answer is 1.52 (since 1.52 × 1.52 × 1.52 = 3.53). Thus,
Mars’ semimajor axis in astronomical units must be 1.52 AU. In other words, to go around the Sun in a little less
than two years, Mars must be about 50% (half again) as far from the Sun as Earth is.

EXAMPLE 3.1

Calculating Periods

Imagine an object is traveling around the Sun. What would be the orbital period of the object if its orbit
has a semimajor axis of 50 AU?

Solution

From Kepler’s third law, we know that (when we use units of years and AU)

P2 = a3
If the object’s orbit has a semimajor axis of 50 AU (a = 50), we can cube 50 and then take the square root
of the result to get P:

P = a3
P = 50 × 50 × 50 = 125,000 = 353.6 years

Therefore, the orbital period of the object is about 350 years. This would place our hypothetical object
beyond the orbit of Pluto.

Check Your Learning

What would be the orbital period of an asteroid (a rocky chunk between Mars and Jupiter) with a
semimajor axis of 3 AU?

Answer:

P = 3 × 3 × 3 = 27 = 5.2 years

Kepler’s three laws of planetary motion can be summarized as follows:

• Kepler’s first law: Each planet moves around the Sun in an orbit that is an ellipse, with the Sun at one
focus of the ellipse.

• Kepler’s second law: The straight line joining a planet and the Sun sweeps out equal areas in space in
equal intervals of time.

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Chapter 3 Orbits and Gravity 75

• Kepler’s third law: The square of a planet’s orbital period is directly proportional to the cube of the
semimajor axis of its orbit.

Kepler’s three laws provide a precise geometric description of planetary motion within the framework of the
Copernican system. With these tools, it was possible to calculate planetary positions with greatly improved
precision. Still, Kepler’s laws are purely descriptive: they do not help us understand what forces of nature
constrain the planets to follow this particular set of rules. That step was left to Isaac Newton.

EXAMPLE 3.2

Applying Kepler’s Third Law

Using the orbital periods and semimajor axes for Venus and Earth that are provided here, calculate P2
and a3, and verify that they obey Kepler’s third law. Venus’ orbital period is 0.62 year, and its semimajor
axis is 0.72 AU. Earth’s orbital period is 1.00 year, and its semimajor axis is 1.00 AU.

Solution

We can use the equation for Kepler’s third law, P2 ∝ a3. For Venus, P2 = 0.62 × 0.62 = 0.38 and a3 = 0.72 ×
0.72 × 0.72 = 0.37 (rounding numbers sometimes causes minor discrepancies like this). The square of the
orbital period (0.38) approximates the cube of the semimajor axis (0.37). Therefore, Venus obeys Kepler’s
third law. For Earth, P2 = 1.00 × 1.00 = 1.00 and a3 = 1.00 × 1.00 × 1.00 = 1.00. The square of the orbital
period (1.00) approximates (in this case, equals) the cube of the semimajor axis (1.00). Therefore, Earth
obeys Kepler’s third law.

Check Your Learning

Using the orbital periods and semimajor axes for Saturn and Jupiter that are provided here, calculate P2
and a3, and verify that they obey Kepler’s third law. Saturn’s orbital period is 29.46 years, and its
semimajor axis is 9.54 AU. Jupiter’s orbital period is 11.86 years, and its semimajor axis is 5.20 AU.

Answer:

For Saturn, P2 = 29.46 × 29.46 = 867.9 and a3 = 9.54 × 9.54 × 9.54 = 868.3. The square of the orbital period
(867.9) approximates the cube of the semimajor axis (868.3). Therefore, Saturn obeys Kepler’s third law.

LINK TO LEARNING

In honor of the scientist who first devised the laws that govern the motions of planets, the team that built
the first spacecraft to search for planets orbiting other stars decided to name the probe “Kepler.” To
learn more about Johannes Kepler’s life and his laws of planetary motion, as well as lots of information
on the Kepler Mission, visit NASA’s Kepler website (https://openstaxcollege.org/l/30nasakepmiss)
and follow the links that interest you.