Chapter 3 Flashcards
(22 cards)
Who of the following was not a proponent of the heliocentric model of the Solar System?
Ptolemy
Retrograde motion
the apparent or actual movement of an object in the opposite direction of most other objects in a system
Heliocentric Model
a cosmological model that places the Sun at the center of the solar system, with the Earth and other planets orbiting around it
Geocentric Model
a description of the universe that places Earth at the center.
Prograde motion
the apparent motion of an object from west to east, as seen from Earth
In the ________ model of the Solar System, ________ motion is only an apparent, not a real, motion.
heliocentric; retrograde
Retrograde motion is when
planets appear to reverse their movement on the celestial sphere.
Which correction did Ptolemy introduce to the geocentric system to make it more accurate?
epicycles.
a superior planet at opposition
would rise at sunset and set at sunrise.
an inferior planet would have its greatest angular separation from the Sun and would therefore be most easily visible at
at either greatest eastern or western elongation.
Nicolaus Copernicus is credited with creating the first detailed mathematical model of
a heliocentric solar system.
If the Sun is located at one focus of Earth’s elliptical orbit, what is at the other focus?
nothing
The average distance between a planet and the Sun is given by the ________ of its elliptical orbit.
semimajor axis
A circular orbit has an eccentricity of ________, and a very elliptical orbit has an eccentricity of ________.
0; 1
average velocity
the change in position or displacement (∆x) divided by the time intervals (∆t) in which the displacement occurs
Kepler’s second law says that if a planet is in an elliptical orbit around a star, then the planet moves fastest when it is
closest to the star.
According to Kepler’s laws, a comet with a highly eccentric orbit will
spend most of its time far from the Sun.
An empirical science is one that is based on
observed data.
Kepler’s three laws of motion are
based on mathematical fits to real data.
Kepler’s third law by itself applies to
any object orbiting the Sun.
Which object of the masses listed will experience the greatest acceleration if the same force is applied to all of them?
the object with the least mass
If an object is experiencing zero net force in any direction, then that object will always
maintain its current motion.
