shhhhhh -khes

In class, we learned that even after the acceptance of the heliocentric model of the planetary system, people continued to believe that the orbits of the planets had to be perfect circles. However, in 1609, Johann Kepler announced his discovery that the orbits of all the planets in our solar system are ellipses. In fact, they all also very in shape and size. More and more observations have confirmed this discovery. During this lab, we compared ellipses like those of the earth’s orbit with a circle of similar size. The materials we were provided for this lab were the map pins, sharp pencil, string loop, drawing compass, and cardboard square.Using the pins, paper, and a pencil we created an ellipse(s). Then we recorded the focal distance and major axis of the ellipse(s). Afterwards, using the formula eccentricity = focal distance/major axis, to calculate the eccentricity. Lastly, we created an ellipsis close in comparison to the Earth’s and calculated the eccentricity. Then we answered some questions on the lab papers.