Name: Astronomy 2291
Autumn Semester 2023
Problem Set 1
Due Wednesday, September 1 on Carmen
Instructions
Where a calculation is called for, please show all steps in the calculation, explicitly evaluate units, and be careful to
express your final answer with the appropriate units and number of significant figures. Calculations given without
“showing the work” will receive zero credit even if correct. While you may discuss these problems with other
students, you must work out the details and write up the answers yourself. For physical and astronomical constants,
please use the tables provided on Carmen.
There are 5 questions worth 10 points each. All questions have equal weight.
I’ve composed this worksheet in a format ready to be used by Notability or with pencil and paper. If you need more
space to work a problem you may insert blank pages as needed, but please follow the basic format of this worksheet.
Please leave this first page blank (except to write your name above), so we can use it to write comments when grading.
Question 1:
The astronomer SuK’in Repok lives on the planet ‡T’d orbiting the star ‡T’a. SuK’in and her species know basic
mathematics (geometry, trigonometry, and simple algebra), but they have not yet developed calculus or classical
physics, nor have they invented the telescope: only naked-eyestalk observations are possible. For millennia their
prevailing model of the universe has been the ‡T’dcentric Model in which their home planet ‡T’d is the center of
the universe and circled every day by their star, ‡T’a, 5 naked-eyestalk planets, and an outer sphere of fixed stars.
SuK’in, however, has proposed a radical new ‡T’acentric Model in which ‡T’d is in fact the 4th planet from ‡T’a
and orbits around ‡T’a with its 5 sister planets in the same direction on perfect circles. She has made these
observations of the 5 naked-eyestalk planets seen from her world:
Planet Type Psynodic Emax tQ
‡T'b Inferior 15.699 15.316 …
‡T'c Inferior 42.195 26.424 …
‡T'e Superior 195.22 … 28.042
‡T'f Superior 131.92 … 24.634
‡T'g Superior 101.10 … 24.486
dak degrees dak
where:
Emax = maximum elongation angle in degrees
tQ = time between opposition and quadrature in dak.
SuK’in’s home planet ‡T’d is on a circular orbit with a radius of 1 auk. Its day is 1 dak long, and its year is 1 yak
which is 100 dak long. Conveniently, their angular units are the same as ours (360° per full circle).
Using the ‡T’acentric model, compute the sizes (in auk) and sidereal periods (in yak) of the planets in their solar
system. Make a table with your results and draw the ‡T’a system to proper scale looking down on its orbital plane
from above.
Notes:
SuK’in and her species are at a proto-Copernican stage of development and have not yet discovered equivalents of
Kepler’s or Newton’s laws, so no fair using either for your calculations.
SuK’in’s species resembles terrestrial insects and their language has many clicks and ejective sounds. ‡ is an
alveolar click consonant, T’ is an alveolar ejective, K’ is a back dorsal velar ejective.
Question 2:
In 1670s, the Danish astronomer Ole Rømer observed eclipses of Jupiter’s moon Io: when Io disappears into the
shadow of Jupiter during its orbits around Jupiter. When Rømer combined his observations of Io eclipses with those
made by the French astronomer Cassini, he noticed that when Jupiter is near conjunction, we see eclipses of Io occur
about 22 minutes later than predicted compared to what we observed when Jupiter at opposition. Rømer correctly
recognized that this is because light travels at a finite speed: it takes light about 22 minutes longer to travel to Earth
when Jupiter is in conjunction compared to when Jupiter is at opposition.
a. Using Rømer’s data, estimate the speed of light in au/minute. It helps to draw a picture of the relative
positions of the Earth, Sun, and Jupiter at the times of opposition and conjunction to get the geometry
right before undertaking the calculation.
b. Convert your estimated value of the speed of light in au/minute into meters/second.
c. Compare your value from part (b) with the current value for the speed of light.
Historical footnote: Rømer never published his results or computed a value for the speed of light! It fell to others,
chiefly Christian Huygens, to make this calculation and publish it.
Question 3:
The DART spacecraft was launched in November 2021 on a mission to intercept asteroid 65803 Didymos and its
moon Dimorphos. It arrived on 2022 Sept 26 and successfully crashed head-on into Dimorphos, testing a method of
planetary defense against asteroid and comet hazards to Earth. As seen from the Earth, the Didymos system has a
synodic period of 695.70063 days.
a. What is the sidereal (orbital) period of the 65803 Didymos system in days and years?
b. What is the semi-major axis (a) of the orbit of 65083 Didymos system around the Sun in au?
c. The 65803 Didymos system has an orbital eccentricity of e=0.383265. What are the system’s aphelion and
perihelion distances in au?
d. Looking at your answers for part c, what stands out about this asteroid’s orbit relative to Earth’s?
Question 4:
The first comet identified as periodic (returns predictably) is Halley’s Comet (1P/Halley), observed in antiquity but
named for Edmond Halley who predicted in 1705 that the comet last seen in 1682 would return in 1758 (spoiler
alert: it did, 16 years after Halley’s death). The most recent appearance of Halley’s Comet was in 1985/86. Comet
1P/Halley’s orbit has a semimajor axis if a=17.927818 au and an eccentricity of e=0.967943.
a. What is the orbital period, P, of 1P/Halley in years?
b. What is the closest 1P/Halley gets to the Sun (perihelion) in au?
c. What is the farthest 1P/Halley gets from the Sun (aphelion) in au?
d. 1P/Halley was last at perihelion in 1986 Feb 8 at 16:00 UT. When will it reach aphelion? Express your
answer in the same calendar date and time format, with the time to the nearest 1 minute. [Hint: you need to
compute the SI days between perihelion and aphelion, and remember the calendar year is 365 days except on
leap years, so take care to correctly reckon how you get from days to calendar date.]
Question 5:
The Galilean Moons of Jupiter have orbits with these semimajor axes and periods:
Moon a (km) P (days)
Io 421,494 1.76796
Europa 670,929 3.55049
Ganymede 1,070,162 7.15288
Callisto 1,882,714 16.6905
a. Using Newtons form of Kepler’s 3rd Law (in the Keplerian limit), estimate the mass of Jupiter (in kg) for
each moon separately, then compute an average mass from your four estimates.
b. Convert your average mass of Jupiter in kg into units of the Earth and Solar masses.
c. Spacecraft sent to Jupiter measured a precise mass of (1.898125± 0.000088)´1027 kg. How does your
average mass estimate from Kepler’s 3rd law compare to this more precise measurement (be quantitative!)
