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SRIMATHI SUNDARAVALLI MEMORIAL SCHOOL

Name:Mirudhula M
Class: XI D
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THE PERIODS LAW

KEPLER’S THIRD LAW-THE PERIODS LAW PAGE 1 OF 11




 Introduction
Kepler’s Third Law is the last of the revolutionary theorems by German astronomers
Johannes Kepler and explains planetary orbits around the sun.According to Kepler's
law of periods,” The square of the time period of revolution of a planet around the
sun in an elliptical orbit is directly proportional to the cube of its semi-major
axis”.The semi Major axis here, is generally taken as the distance between two
objects for any other case but planetary revolutions.

GIST

The aim of this project is to elaborate on the notions of various scientists on the
third law of Kepler which is the periods law. With this detailed study on The Periods
law,it is assured to get an clear idea of planetary motion as well as the behavior of
the celestial bodies and other objects with respect to its gravitational force and time
taken in movement due to the attraction with the help of Kepler’s third law

KEPLER’S THIRD LAW-THE PERIODS LAW PAGE 2 OF 11

 Planetary Physics

Kepler's Laws of Planetary Motion

Kepler's three laws describe how planetary bodies orbit the Sun. They describe how
planets move in elliptical orbits with the Sun as a focus, a planet covers the same
area of space in the same amount of time no matter where it is in its orbit, and a
planet’s orbital period is proportional to the size of its orbit (its semi-major axis).
Explore the process that Johannes Kepler undertook when he formulated his three
laws of planetary motion.

Transcript

The planets orbit the Sun in a counterclockwise direction as viewed from above the
Sun's north pole, and the planets' orbits all are aligned to what astronomers call the
ecliptic plane.
The story of our greater understanding of planetary motion could not be told if it
were not for the work of a German mathematician named Johannes Kepler. Kepler
lived in Graz, Austria during the tumultuous early 17th century. Due to religious
and political difficulties common during that era, Kepler was banished from Graz on
August 2nd, 1600.
Fortunately, an opportunity to work as an assistant for the famous astronomer
Tycho Brahe presented itself and the young Kepler moved his family from Graz 300
miles across the Danube River to Brahe's home in Prague. Tycho Brahe is credited
with the most accurate astronomical observations of his time and was impressed
with the studies of Kepler during an earlier meeting. However, Brahe mistrusted
Kepler, fearing that his bright young intern might eclipse him as the premier
astronomer of his day. He, therefore, led Kepler to see only part of his voluminous
planetary data.
He set Kepler, the task of understanding the orbit of the planet Mars, the movement
of which fit problematically into the universe as described by Aristotle and Ptolemy.
It is believed that part of the motivation for giving the Mars problem to Kepler was
Brahe's hope that its difficulty would occupy Kepler while Brahe worked to perfect
his own theory of the solar system, which was based on a geocentric model, where
the earth is the center of the solar system. Based on this model, the planets
Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn all orbit the Sun, which in turn orbits
the earth. As it turned out, Kepler, unlike Brahe, believed firmly in the Copernican
model of the solar system known as heliocentric, which correctly placed the Sun at
its center. But the reason Mars' orbit was problematic was because the Copernican
system incorrectly assumed the orbits of the planets to be circular.
After much struggling, Kepler was forced to an eventual realization that the orbits of
the planets are not circles, but were instead the elongated or flattened circles that
geometers call ellipses, and the particular difficulties Brahe hand with the
movement of Mars were due to the fact that its orbit was the most elliptical of the
planets for which Brahe had extensive data. Thus, in a twist of irony, Brahe

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unwittingly gave Kepler the very part of his data that would enable Kepler to
formulate the correct theory of the solar system, banishing Brahe's own theory.
Since the orbits of the planets are ellipses, let us review three basic properties of
ellipses. The first property of an ellipse: an ellipse is defined by two points, each
called a focus, and together called foci. The sum of the distances to the foci from
any point on the ellipse is always a constant. The second property of an ellipse: the
amount of flattening of the ellipse is called the eccentricity. The flatter the ellipse,
the more eccentric it is. Each ellipse has an eccentricity with a value between zero, a
circle, and one, essentially a flat line, technically called a parabola.
The third property of an ellipse: the longest axis of the ellipse is called the major
axis, while the shortest axis is called the minor axis. Half of the major axis is termed
a semi-major axis. Knowing then that the orbits of the planets are elliptical,
johannes Kepler formulated three laws of planetary motion, which accurately
described the motion of comets as well.

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 Kepler's Third Law

The squares of the orbital periods of the planets are directly proportional to the
cubes of the semi-major axes of their orbits. Kepler's Third Law implies that the
period for a planet to orbit the Sun increases rapidly with the radius of its orbit.
Thus we find that Mercury, the innermost planet, takes only 88 days to orbit the
Sun. The earth takes 365 days, while Saturn requires 10,759 days to do the same.
Though Kepler hadn't known about gravitation when he came up with his three
laws, they were instrumental in Isaac Newton deriving his theory of universal
gravitation, which explains the unknown force behind Kepler's Third Law. Kepler
and his theories were crucial in the better understanding of our solar system
dynamics and as a springboard to newer theories that more accurately approximate
our planetary orbits.

This captures the relationship between the distance of planets from the Sun, and
their orbital periods.
Kepler enunciated in 1619 this third law in a laborious attempt to determine what
he viewed as the "music of the spheres" according to precise laws, and express it in
terms of musical notation. It was therefore known as the harmonic law.
Using Newton's law of gravitation (published 1687), this relation can be found in the
case of a circular orbit by setting the centripetal force equal to the gravitational
force:
mrω2=GmM/r^2

Then, expressing the angular velocity ω in terms of the orbital period T and then
rearranging, results in Kepler's Third Law:

mr(2π/T)^2)=GmM/r^2
→^2T=(4π^2/GM)r^3
→^T2∝^r3

A more detailed derivation can be done with general elliptical orbits, instead of
circles, as well as orbiting the center of mass, instead of just the large mass. This
results in replacing a circular radius,r, with the semi-major axis,a, of the elliptical
relative motion of one mass relative to the other, as well as replacing the large mass
M with M+m. However, with planet masses being so much smaller than the Sun,
this correction is often ignored. The full corresponding formula is:
a^3/T^2 = G(M+m)/4π^2≈GM/4π^2 ≈ 7.496×10^-6.AU^3/^days2 is constant

where
M
is the mass of the Sun,
m
is the mass of the planet,

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 G
is the gravitational constant,
T
is the orbital period and
a
is the elliptical semi-major axis, and
AU
is the astronomical unit, the average distance from earth to the sun.

Dimensional analysis

Kepler's third law can be derived with dimensional analysis using the definition of
force as T^−2.LM and Newton's gravitation law that F=Gm/2r^2.The following
notation can be used:

Symbol Representation

F the gravitational force of the central body, in this case the Sun

l
semi-major axis of the orbit's ellipse

m
mass of the orbiting body, in this case the planet

ms
mass of the central body, in this case the mass of the Sun

t the time the body takes to complete its orbit, in this case the
planetary orbit period

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Then there is a function t=f(F,m,l) that can be found with dimensional analysis. The
following table shows how to find the nondimensional form using dimensional
analysis with the Buckingham Pi theorem:

t F m l
T T^−2LM M L
F∗m^−1
T^−2.L
F∗m^−1∗t^2
L
F∗m^−1∗t^2∗l^-1
1
This means the following equation is true:
Fm^-1.t^2.l^-1 = constant

Newton's law of gravitation tells us that

F∝m∗ms∗l^−2

Then this can be written as an equation:

F*m^-1*ms^-1*l^2 = constant

The two equations can then be divided by each other. On the left hand side there is
F*m^-1*t^2*l^-1*F^-1*m^-1*ms^-1*l^-2

Rearranging we have:
F*F^-1*m^-1*m^1*ms^1*t^2*l^-1*l^-2

The variables m and ms both have the same dimension of M, which causes
m^-1*m^1*ms^1
to be dimensionally equivalent to
M^-1*M^1 = M^(-1+1] = M^0 = 1. The force dimension also cancels out through
F*F^-1. The only remaining terms now on the left hand side are

t^{2}*l^{-1}*l^{-2}=t^{2}*l^{-1+-2}=t^{2}*l^{-3}}

The equation is now

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 t^2*l^-3=constant

This proves that

t^2 ∝ l^3

This is how to use Newton's law of gravity and dimensional analysis to derive
Kepler's third law.

The following table shows the data used by Kepler to empirically derive his law:
Data used by Kepler (1618)
R^3
Mean distance Period ___
Planet
to sun (AU) (days) T^2
 (10-6 AU3/day2)

Mercury 0.389 87.77 7.64

Venus 0.724 224.70 7.52

Earth 1 365.25 7.50
Mars 1.524 686.95 7.50
Jupiter 5.20 4332.62 7.49
Saturn 9.510 10759.2 7.43
Upon finding this pattern Kepler wrote:
I first believed I was dreaming... But it is absolutely certain and exact that the ratio
which exists between the period times of any two planets is precisely the ratio of the
3/2th power of the mean distance.
— translated from Harmonies of the World by Kepler (1619)

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Log-log plot of period T vs semi-major axis a (average of aphelion and perihelion) of

some Solar System orbits (crosses denoting Kepler's values) showing that a³/T² is
constant (green line)
For comparison, here are modern estimates:
Modern data (Wolfram Alpha Knowledgebase 2018)

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 R^3
___
Semi-major Period
Planet T^2
axis (AU) (days)
 (10-6 AU3/
day2)
Mercury 0.38710 87.9693 7.496
Venus 0.72333 224.7008 7.496
Earth 1 365.2564 7.496
Mars 1.52366 686.9796 7.495
Jupiter 5.20336 4332.8201 7.504
Saturn 9.53707 10775.599 7.498
Uranus 19.1913 30687.153 7.506
Neptune 30.0690 60190.03 7.504

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 Bibliography

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kepler's_laws_of_planetary_motion

https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/resources/310/orbits-and-keplers-laws/

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