FR CH 2 3 PDF

Jupiter Impact!
Monday Sept. 10, 2012 at 11:35 UT

Possible asteroid or comet
Frame from a video recording made in Dallas, Texas by amateur astronomer George Hall
Read story in Space weather web site:www.spaceweather.com
The Copernican revolution
Chapters 2 and 3
The Ancient Mystery of the Planets
Chapter 2, section 2.4
Topics we will explore:
• What was once so mysterious about planetary

motion in our sky?
• Why did the ancient Greeks reject the real
explanation for planetary motion?
© 2010 Pearson Education, Inc.

3.2 Ancient Greek Science
More topics to explore:

• Why does modern science trace its roots to
the Greeks?
• How did the Greeks explain planetary
motion?
• How was Greek knowledge preserved
through history?

Planets Known in Ancient Times
• Mercury
– difficult to see; always close to
Sun in sky
• Venus
– very bright when visible; morning
or evening “star”.
• Mars
– noticeably red
• Jupiter
– very bright,
• Saturn
– moderately bright
Picture of a grouping of five planets in the

evening sky on April 23, 2002. Their
positions trace a portion of the ecliptic.
This is called in the media “planetary
alignment”

What was once so mysterious
about planetary motion in our sky?
• Planets usually move slightly eastward from night to night
relative to the stars (“wanderers” in the sky).
• But sometimes they go westward relative to the stars for a few
weeks. This is called apparent retrograde motion.
A composite of 29
individual pictures of
Mars taken between
June and November
2003 shows the apparent
retrograde motion.
Notice that Mars is
brighter around August
27 when it is closer to
Earth.
Also note that the series
of small dots to the right
of the center is the planet
Uranus which happens
to be in that part of the
sky
How did the Greeks explained the retrograde motion?
According to the Ptolemaic model (based on Ptolemy 100-170 A.D.
model ) during the retrograde motion, the planets really go
backward.

How the retrograde motion can be explained in the heliocentric model?
We see apparent retrograde motion when the Earth passes by a planet such
as Mars in its orbit.

Explaining Apparent Retrograde Motion
• Easy for us to explain: occurs when we

“lap” another planet (or when Mercury or
Venus laps us).
• But very difficult to explain if you think that
Earth is the center of the universe!
• In fact, ancients considered but rejected the
correct explanation.

Parallax concept

Why did the ancient Greeks reject the real
• Their inability to observe stellar parallax was a major factor.
•If the Earth was in orbit around the Sun we should see nearby
stars changing position when the Earth move in its orbit

The Greeks knew that the lack of observable parallax
could mean one of two things:
1. Stars are so far away that stellar parallax is too

small to notice with the naked eye.
2. Earth does not orbit the Sun; it is the center of
the universe.
With rare exceptions such as Aristarchus (310-230 B.C.), the
Greeks rejected the correct explanation (1) because they
did not think the stars could be that far away.
Aristarchus is credited to be the first to suggest that the
Earth goes around the Sun
Thus, the stage was set for the long, historical showdown between Earth-
centered and Sun-centered systems.

What have we learned?
• What was so mysterious about planetary motion
in our sky?
– Like the Sun and Moon, planets usually drift eastward
relative to the stars from night to night, but
sometimes, for a few weeks or few months, a planet
turns westward in its apparent retrograde motion.
• Why did the ancient Greeks reject the real
– Most Greeks concluded that Earth must be stationary,
because they thought the stars could not be so far
away as to make parallax undetectable.

Ancient Greek Science
• Geocentric model: the Earth is the center of
the solar system (and the universe).
• Heliocentric model: The Sun is the center of
the solar system

Why does modern science trace its roots to
the Greeks?
• Greeks were the first

people known to make
models of nature.
• They tried to explain
patterns in nature without
resorting to myth or the
supernatural.
Greek geocentric model (c. 400 B.C.). The Earth at the center of a series of nested
spheres that contain the planets. The outermost sphere hold the stars .
Special Topic: Eratosthenes Measures Earth (c. 240 B.C.)
He was able to measure the circumference of the Earth
Measurements: Alexandria
Syene to Alexandria
distance ≈ 5000 stadia
At noon: Syene
Sun at Syene at zenith
Sun at Alexandria ~angle = 7°
Calculate circumference of Earth:

7/360 (circum. Earth) = 5000 stadia
circum. Earth = 5000 360/7 stadia ≈ 250,000 stadia
Compare to modern value (≈ 40,100 km):

Greek stadium ≈ 1/6 km 250,000 stadia ≈ 42,000 km

How did the Greeks explain planetary motion?
Underpinnings of the Greek geocentric model:
• Earth at the center of the universe

• Heavens must be “perfect”: Objects
moving on perfect spheres or in
perfect circles.
Plato
Aristotle
The most sophisticated
geocentric model was that of
Ptolemy (A.D. 100-170) —
the Ptolemaic model:
• Sufficiently accurate to
remain in use for 1,500 years,
until the 1600’s when the
heliocentric model was
introduced.
• Arabic translation of
Ptolemy’s work named
Almagest (“the greatest
Ptolemy compilation”)

Ptolemaic Universe
• Useful for predicting the positions of

planets in the sky, but ultimately
wrong.
The large circle, called deferent is the
path of a planet in its orbit around the
Earth
The small circle is called epicycle. It
was necessary to introduce it to
explain the retrograde motion
• How was Greek knowledge preserved
through history?
– While Europe was in its Dark Ages, Islamic scientists
preserved and extended Greek science, later helping
to ignite the European Renaissance

The Copernican Revolution
Some of the topic we will explore are:
• How did Copernicus, Tycho, and Kepler challenge

the Earth-centered model?
• What are Kepler’s three laws of planetary motion?
• How did Galileo solidify the Copernican
revolution?

How did Copernicus, Tycho, and Kepler
challenge the Earth-centered model?
Copernicus:
•Proposed a Sun-centered model
(published 1543). This idea was proposed
by Aristarchus about 1700 years earlier.
• Used model to determine layout of
solar system (planetary distances
in AU)
But . . .
• The model was no more accurate than
the Ptolemaic model in predicting
planetary positions, because it still used
perfect circles.
Copernicus (1473-1543)

Tycho Brahe:
•Compiled the most accurate
(accurate to one arcminute) naked eye
measurements ever made of planetary
positions.
• Still could not detect stellar parallax,
and thus still thought Earth must be at
center of solar system (but recognized
that other planets go around Sun).
• He hired Kepler, who used Tycho’s
observations to discover the truth
about planetary motion. Kepler was a
Tycho Brahe (1546-1601) mathematician, not an observational
astronomer.
• Kepler first tried to match Tycho’s
observations with circular orbits
• But an 8-arcminute discrepancy led
him eventually to propose elliptical
orbits. The discrepancy he found was
about ¼ the diameter of the moon.
(Remember that the Moon has a diameter about 30
arcminutes or ½ of a degrees.)
•He proposed his three laws of

planetary motions, now knows as
Kepler’s laws
Johannes Kepler “If I had believed that we could ignore these eight
minutes [of arc], I would have patched up my
(1571-1630) hypothesis accordingly. But, since it was not
permissible to ignore, those eight minutes pointed
the road to a complete reformation in astronomy.”
What is an ellipse?
An ellipse looks like an elongated circle.

Important parameters in the ellipse
For a circle, the position of the focus coincide with the center and the
distance c is zero and the eccentricity is zero
What are Kepler’s three laws of planetary motion?
Kepler’s First Law: The orbit of each planet around
the Sun is an ellipse with the Sun at one focus.

Kepler’s Second Law: As a planet moves around its
orbit, it sweeps out equal areas in equal times.
This means that a planet travels faster when it is nearer to the Sun
and slower when it is farther from the Sun.
Perihelion: minimum distance from the sun
Aphelion: maximum distance from the Sun
Kepler’s Second Law
Planets sweep out equal
areas in equal intervals
of time.
They move fastest at

perihelion and slowest
at aphelion.
area A = area B = area C

Kepler’s Third Law
 The square of a planet's orbital period is proportional to
the cube of its semi-major axis.
p2 = a3
p = orbital period in years
a = avg. distance from Sun in AU
Important: The period needs to be in years and the distance in AU
Kepler’s third law predicts that more distant planets (larger a) orbit the Sun at
slower average speeds (longer p)
His laws of planetary motions are empirical (Based on fitting this equation to
the existing data)

Graphical version of Kepler’s Third Law

Question
An asteroid orbits the Sun at an average distance
a = 4 AU. How long does it take to orbit the Sun?
A. 4 years
B. 8 years
C. 16 years
D. 64 years
Hint: Remember that p2 = a3

Question
An asteroid orbits the Sun at an average distance
a = 4 AU. How long does it take to orbit the Sun?
A. 4 years
B. 8 years
C. 16 years
D. 64 years
We need to find p so that p2 = a3.

Since a = 4, a3 = 43 = 4x4x4 = 64.
Therefore, p2 = 64 = 82 Then p= 8.

Galileo telescope
Galileo (1564-1642) began
constructing and using a telescope
for astronomical observations
around 1610.
He did not invented or patented the
telescope. Hans Lippershey
patented the telescope in 1608.
His telescope was very simple and
by today standards very
rudimentary.
But he used an instrument that then
it was a new device (But now is can
be considered a toy) and was able to
discover sunspots, lunar craters and
mountains, the phases of Venus and
the presence of many stars in the
milky way.
He turned the telescope into a
scientific instrument.

How did Galileo solidify the Copernican revolution?
Galileo overcame major objections to the
Copernican view. Three key objections
rooted in Aristotelian view were:
1. Earth could not be moving

because objects in air would be
left behind.
2. Non-circular orbits are not

“perfect” as heavens should be.
3. If Earth were really orbiting Sun,

we’d detect stellar parallax.

Overcoming the first objection (nature of motion):
Galileo’s experiments showed that objects in air would

stay with Earth as it moves.
• Aristotle thought that all objects naturally come to rest.

• Galileo showed that objects will stay in motion unless
a force acts to slow them down ( This became later
Newton’s first law of motion).

Overcoming the second objection (heavenly perfection):
Tycho’s observations of comet and supernova already challenged
this idea by showing that the heavens could change
• Using his telescope, Galileo saw:
• Sunspots on the Sun (The Sun
is not “perfect”, it has
“imperfections”)
• Mountains and valleys on the

Moon (proving it is not a
perfect sphere)

Overcoming the third objection (parallax):
• Tycho thought that his naked eye observations were

precise enough to detect stellar parallax. Since he
didn’t detect parallax, lack of parallax seemed to rule
out an orbiting Earth. The fact is that his observations
were good to a few arc minutes but stellar parallax are
smaller, around a few arc seconds.
• Galileo showed that the stars must be much farther
than Tycho thought — in part by using his telescope to
see the Milky Way and be able to resolve into
countless individual stars.
 If stars were much farther away, then lack of
detectable parallax was no longer so troubling.
Galileo discovered two even more important facts
Galileo also saw four

moons orbiting Jupiter,
proving that not all objects
orbit the Earth.
The figure shows Galileo’s
records of Jupiter (~1610)
and the position of its four
brightest satellites (now
called Galilean satellites or
moons). Their names are:
Io, Europa, Ganymede and
Callisto
Galileo’s observations of the phases of Venus proved that
Venus could not be in orbit around the Earth. His
observations were consistent with Venus orbiting the Sun
and not the Earth.
The Catholic Church ordered Galileo to recant his claim
that Earth orbits the Sun in 1633. At that time he was
around 70 years old so he did as he was ordered.
His book on the subject was removed from the Church’s

index of banned books in 1757. And finally in 1835 all
books on the heliocentric model were finally removed from
the Index of prohibited books
Galileo was formally vindicated by the Church in 1992.

Galileo used the Scientific Method when
studying objects in the sky.
Observation Explanation
Prediction

Relative positions of a planet respect to the Sun and
Earth

A summary of what we learned?
• How did Copernicus, Tycho and Kepler
challenge the Earth-centered idea?
– Copernicus created a Sun-centered model; Tycho
provided the data needed to improve this model;
Kepler found a model that fit Tycho’s data.
• What are Kepler’s three laws of planetary
motion?
– 1. The orbit of each planet is an ellipse with the Sun
at one focus.
– 2. As a planet moves around its orbit it sweeps out
equal areas in equal times.
– 3. Planets orbit the Sun following the equation:
p2 = a3
A summary of what we learned?
• How did Galileo contributed to the Sun-centered model?
• Galileo provided for the first time the observational
evidence to support the Sun-centered model. Before the
invention of the telescope there was no way to learn what
Galileo discovered.
• The facts provided by the observations and supported by
Kepler equations provided support to the heliocentric
model and allowed to discard the geocentric model.

• What was Galileo’s role in solidifying the
Copernican revolution?
– His experiments and observations overcame the
remaining objections to the Sun-centered solar system
model.

In the geocentric model the
order of the bodies in the Geocentric model
solar system are (in
increasing distances):
Earth, Moon, Mercury, Venus,
Sun, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn
In the heliocentric model the

order of the bodies in the
solar system (in increasing
distance) are:
Sun, Mercury, Venus, Earth
(Moon), Mars, Jupiter and
Saturn.
1st Law 2nd Law 3rd Law

The Nature of Science
Our goals for learning:
• How can we distinguish science from
nonscience?
• What is a scientific theory?

How can we distinguish science from non-science?
• Defining science can be surprisingly difficult.

• Science from the Latin scientia, meaning “knowledge.”
•Science is a quest for knowledge and an understanding of
the Universe and all that is within it
•Individual scientist learn from those that have proceeded
them and their work guide those that follow them
•As Newton said: “If I have seen further it is by standing on
the shoulders of giants”

The idealized scientific method
• Based on proposing and
testing hypotheses
• hypothesis = educated guess

But science rarely proceeds in this idealized
way. For example:
• Sometimes we start by “just looking” then we discovered something
and we need to come up with possible explanations for what we
observed
• Serendipitous discoveries. Many of the most important discoveries
came after somebody was investigating a completely different
phenomenon. One example is the discovery of the 2.7 K cosmic
background emission. Penzias and Wilson were investigating a
different kind of antenna. They found an additional noise that they
could not account for.
• Sometimes we follow our intuition rather than a particular line of
evidence. An example is Kepler following an intuition to find a way to
make his heliocentric model works.

Hallmark of Science: #1
Modern science seeks explanations for

observed phenomena that rely solely on
natural causes.
(A scientific model cannot include divine intervention)

Science progresses through the creation and

testing of models of nature that explain the
observations as simply as possible.
An example is the transition from the
geocentric model to the heliocentric model.
It eliminate the epicycles…
(Simplicity = “Occam’s razor”)

A scientific model must make testable

predictions about natural phenomena that
would force us to revise or abandon the
model if the predictions do not agree with
observations.

What is a scientific theory?
• The word theory has a different meaning in
science than in everyday life.
• In science, a theory is NOT the same as a
hypothesis (or a theory in everyday life), rather:
• A scientific theory must:
—Explain a wide variety of observations with a few
simple principles, AND
—Must be supported by a large, compelling body of
evidence.
—Must NOT have failed any crucial test of its validity.

Can a scientific theory be improved?
• A scientific theory can be improved.
For example Newton gravitational theory is still valid . But
300 years later Einstein relativity theory proved to be
more general and applies to extreme cases where Newton
theory fail.
But trying to use relativity in some simple cases is similar to
trying to cross the street using a jet airplane!
Another example is Kepler’s law of planetary motion. It is
limited and applies to planets in orbit around the Sun.
Newton laws are more general and can be applied to any
two bodies in orbit around each other.

Question
Darwin’s theory of evolution meets all the criteria of
a scientific theory. This means:
A. Scientific opinion is about evenly split as to whether
evolution really happened.
B. Scientific opinion runs about 90% in favor of the theory
of evolution and about 10% opposed.
C. After more than 100 years of testing, Darwin’s theory
stands stronger than ever, having successfully met every
scientific challenge to its validity.
D. There is no longer any doubt that the theory of evolution
is absolutely true.

Question
Darwin’s theory of evolution meets all the criteria of
a scientific theory. This means:
A. Scientific opinion is about evenly split as to whether
evolution really happened.
B. Scientific opinion runs about 90% in favor of the theory
of evolution and about 10% opposed.
C. After more than 100 years of testing, Darwin’s theory
stands stronger than ever, having successfully met
every scientific challenge to its validity.
D. There is no longer any doubt that the theory of evolution
is absolutely true.

• How can we distinguish science from non-
science?
– Science: seeks explanations that rely solely on
natural causes; progresses through the creation
and testing of models of nature; models must
make testable predictions
• What is a scientific theory?
– A model that explains a wide variety of
observations in terms of a few general principles
and that has survived repeated and varied testing

Astrology
Our goals for learning:
• How is astrology different from astronomy?
• Does astrology have any scientific validity?

How is astrology different from
astronomy?
• Astronomy is a science focused on learning about
how stars, planets, galaxies and other celestial
objects work and evolve. Astronomy make use of
physics principles, theories and math. It can make
testable predictions.
• Astrology is a search for hidden influences on
human lives based on the positions of the Sun,
Moon and planets among the stars in the sky,
mainly the Zodiac constellations.

Does astrology have any scientific
validity?
• Scientific tests have
shown that astrological
predictions are no more
accurate than we should
expect from pure
chance.
Casting horoscopes by astronomers

in the 1600’s was a way to survive!
A horoscope by Kepler

• How is astrology different from astronomy?
– Astronomy is the scientific study of the universe
and the celestial objects within it.
– Astrology assumes that the positions of celestial
objects influence human events.
• Does astrology have any scientific validity?
– Scientific tests show that the predictions of
astrology are no more accurate than pure chance.
– Astrology offers only vague advice rather than
testable predictions

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Jupiter Impact!

Monday Sept. 10, 2012 at 11:35 UT

• What was once so mysterious about planetary

© 2010 Pearson Education, Inc.

More topics to explore:

© 2010 Pearson Education, Inc.

Picture of a grouping of five planets in the

© 2010 Pearson Education, Inc.

© 2010 Pearson Education, Inc.

© 2010 Pearson Education, Inc.

• Easy for us to explain: occurs when we

© 2010 Pearson Education, Inc.

© 2010 Pearson Education, Inc.

© 2010 Pearson Education, Inc.

1. Stars are so far away that stellar parallax is too

© 2010 Pearson Education, Inc.

© 2010 Pearson Education, Inc.

© 2010 Pearson Education, Inc.

• Greeks were the first

Calculate circumference of Earth:

Compare to modern value (≈ 40,100 km):

© 2010 Pearson Education, Inc.

• Earth at the center of the universe

© 2010 Pearson Education, Inc.

• Useful for predicting the positions of

© 2010 Pearson Education, Inc.

• How did Copernicus, Tycho, and Kepler challenge

© 2010 Pearson Education, Inc.

© 2010 Pearson Education, Inc.

•He proposed his three laws of

An ellipse looks like an elongated circle.

© 2010 Pearson Education, Inc.

They move fastest at

area A = area B = area C

© 2010 Pearson Education, Inc.

Important: The period needs to be in years and the distance in AU

© 2010 Pearson Education, Inc.

© 2010 Pearson Education, Inc.

Hint: Remember that p2 = a3

© 2010 Pearson Education, Inc.

We need to find p so that p2 = a3.

© 2010 Pearson Education, Inc.

© 2010 Pearson Education, Inc.

1. Earth could not be moving

2. Non-circular orbits are not

3. If Earth were really orbiting Sun,

© 2010 Pearson Education, Inc.

Galileo’s experiments showed that objects in air would

• Aristotle thought that all objects naturally come to rest.

© 2010 Pearson Education, Inc.

• Mountains and valleys on the

© 2010 Pearson Education, Inc.

• Tycho thought that his naked eye observations were

Galileo also saw four

His book on the subject was removed from the Church’s

Galileo was formally vindicated by the Church in 1992.

© 2010 Pearson Education, Inc.

© 2010 Pearson Education, Inc.

© 2010 Pearson Education, Inc.

© 2010 Pearson Education, Inc.

© 2010 Pearson Education, Inc.

In the heliocentric model the

© 2010 Pearson Education, Inc.