GROUP MEMBERS: HENRY CHEN
FORCES: KEPLER’S LAWS
AP PHYSICS 1
Driving Question | Objective
How does changing the orbital radius of a planet around a star affect its orbital velocity and orbital period? In this
lab, you will attempt to determine the function dependence of the following variables:
• Orbital Velocity vs. Orbital Radius
• Orbital Period vs. Orbital Radius
Procedure
1. Open the PhET Simulation: https://phet.colorado.edu/sims/html/keplers-laws/latest/keplers-laws_all.html
2. Select “All Laws”
3. Assure that the following options are activated: “Always Circular”, “Speed”, “Velocity”, “Measuring Tape”, and
“Stopwatch”, as seen below.
4. Align the tape measure to start from the star and measure the distance to the planet, as seen below.
5. Press Play and record the three variables: Orbital Radius, Orbital Velocity, and Orbital Period.
6. Move the planet to a new orbital radius and repeat this process until you have 8-10 data sets.
1
ERROR! NO TEXT OF SPECIFIED STYLE IN DOCUMENT.
Data
Record your data in the tables below. When recording your values in standard SI Units in the table to the right, you
can google the conversions. However, do not type it in standard scientific notation. For example, instead of typing
"𝟏. 𝟒𝟗𝟔 × 𝟏𝟎𝟏𝟏 ", you should type “1.496E11” as this is how excel understands scientific notation.
Orbital Radius Orbital Velocity Orbital Period Orbital Radius Orbital Velocity Orbital Period
(AU) (km/s) (years) (m) (m/s) (seconds)
1 29.79 1.00 1.496E11 29790 3.154E7
3 17.23 5.18 4.488E11 17230 1.6336E8
3.50 15.96 6.52 5.236E11 15960 2.0561E8
2 21.11 2.83 2.992E11 21110 8.9247E7
4 14.96 7.94 5.984E11 14960 2.504E8
.47 44.15 .31 7.031E10 44150 9.776E6
5.04 13.30 11.30 7.5397E11 13300 3.5636E8
6 12.20 14.60 8.976E11 12200 4.6043E8
7 11.30 18.40 1.047E12 11300 5.8026E8
1.81 22.31 2.25 2.7077E11 22310 7.0956E7
Graphs
Place your data in the graphs below using standard SI Units. For help with this, you can ask your teacher or watch
this video.
Orbital Velocity vs. Orbital Radius
Velocity vs. Radius Velocity vs. Radius^-0.5
50000 50000
Orbital Velocity (m/s)
y = 11,719,901,893.06x - 230.23
Orbital Velocity (m/s)
40000 y= 12,588,932,357.34x-0.50 40000
R² = 1.00 R² = 1.00
30000 30000
20000 20000
10000 10000
0 0
0.00E+00 1.00E+12 2.00E+12 0.00E+00 1.00E-06 2.00E-06 3.00E-06 4.00E-06
-10000
Radius (meters) Radius^-0.5 (meters)^-0.5
Graph 1: Original Graph 2: Linearized
Orbital Period vs. Orbital Radius
Period vs. Radius Period vs. Radius^3/2
7.00E+08 7.00E+08
Orbital Period (seconds)
Oribital Period (seconds)
6.00E+08 6.00E+08
5.00E+08 5.00E+08
4.00E+08 4.00E+08
y = 3.891E-10x1.512E+00
3.00E+08 3.00E+08 y = 5.43E-10x - 8.64E+05
R² = 9.999E-01
2.00E+08 2.00E+08 R² = 1.00E+00
1.00E+08 1.00E+08
0.00E+00 0.00E+00
0.00E+00 1.00E+12 2.00E+12 0.00E+00 2.00E+18
-1.00E+08
Radius (meters) Radius^3/2 (meters)^3/2
Graph 3: Original Graph 4: Linearized
2
ERROR! NO TEXT OF SPECIFIED STYLE IN DOCUMENT.
Analysis Questions
• 1. What type of mathematical relationship (linear, power, inverse, root, or exponential) between your measured
quantities?
For velocity vs radius inverse root because the exponential power b is close to -.5 For period vs radius
there’s a power relationship because exponential power b is greater than 1.
𝐺𝑀 4𝜋2
• 2. Consider the equations: 𝑣𝑜𝑟𝑏𝑖𝑡 = √ and 𝑇 2 = 𝑟 3 . What mathematical expression would the slope of each of
𝑟 𝐺𝑀
your linearized graphs represent?
Graph 2: Slope = (𝐺𝑀)0.5
2𝑝𝑖
Graph 4: Slope = (𝐺𝑀)0.5
• 3. Using the slope of both of your graphs, calculate the mass of your star, in kg. Please keep in mind that you will
need to convert some units for this to work out
Mass calculation from Graph 2’s Slope: 2.06x10^30 kg
Mass calculation from Graph 4’s Slope: 2.01x10^30 kg
• 4. What as some possible sources of error in this lab and what did you do to minimize it?
Possible errors in the lab include not having exact timing, as human reaction time isn’t perfect, which
could affect the accuracy of measuring orbital years. Also, the radius measurements might be slightly off
since the ruler may not have been perfectly centered between the two spheres. The precision of the website
used was also a limiting factor.
