Nurayda Albeez

Determine the Mass of the Sun Lab

Manipulation of Data

Before manipulating the data, I derived the equation below from Kepler’s Laws so
that it includes mean orbital radius (r), orbital period (T), and mass (M).

T2/r3 = 4π2/GM

In order to yield an equation that uses the given variables (r and T) and will have
a slope equal to the mass of the sun, I solved the above equation for M to obtain
the below equation.

M = (4π2r3)/(T2G)

This equation will have a slope equal to the mass of the sun if the numerator is
graphed on the y-axis and the denominator is graphed on the x-axis because
slope is the change in y divided by the change in x.

After determining the proper equation, I manipulated the data by first converting
the mean orbital radius from Astronomical Units (AU) to meters and the orbital
period from Julian Years (Jyr) to seconds as the equation for the mass of the sun
uses these units. I converted from AU to meters by multiplying the AU values by
a conversion factor of 1.495978707E+11 and converted from Jyr to seconds by
multiplying the Jyr values by a conversion factor of 31557600. Example
conversions for Mercury are shown below.

Mean Orbital Radius in AU: 0.387098

Mean Orbital Radius in meters: 0.387098*1.495978707E+11 = 57909036552

Orbital Period in Jyr: 0.240846

Orbital Period in seconds: 0.240846*31557600 = 7600521.73

Once I converted all values, I cubed the mean orbital radius and multiplied it by
4π2 to acquire all values for the y-axis and squared the orbital period and
multiplied it by G to acquire all values for the x-axis. Example calculations for
Mercury are shown below.

Y-Axis Value: 4π2r3 = 4π2(57909036552)3 = 7.66653E+33

X-Axis Value: T2G = (7600521.73)2(6.73E-11) = 3853.120968
Data Table with Transformed Values

Mean
Orbital Mean
Radius Orbital Y-Axis: Orbital Orbital
Planet (AU) Radius (m) 4π2r3 Period (Jyr) Period (s) X-Axis: T2G
579090365 7.66653E+ 7600521.7 3853.1209
Mercury 0.387098 52 33 0.240846 3 68
108207131 5.00181E+ 19414172. 25139.903
Venus 0.72332 835 34 0.615198 4 01
1.0000010 149598022 1.32171E+ 31558136. 66427.595
Earth 18 991 35 1.000017 48 74
227939134 4.67537E+ 59353534. 234973.56
Mars 1.523679 030 35 1.8808 08 19
353318755 1.74124E+ 875280.02
Vesta 2.36179 041 36 3.63 114554088 65
414012107 2.80155E+ 1405560.1
Ceres 2.7675 162 36 4.6 145164960 36
778297882 1.86122E+ 374329939 9346197.6
Jupiter 5.2026 104 37 11.8618 .7 8
142939404 1.15296E+ 57638642.
Saturn 9.554909 1132 38 29.4571 929595379 82
287503171 9.38183E+ 265148533 468925976
Uranus 19.2184 8261 38 84.0205 1 .4
450444978 3.60815E+ 520069248 180404839
Neptune 30.110387 1153 39 164.8 0 2
591509980 8.17045E+ 782628480 408542394
Pluto 39.54 7478 39 248 0 3
101398932 4.11585E+ 176104031 206854240
Eris 67.781 73917 40 558.04 04 42
Graph

Mass of the Sun and Percent Error

The slope of my fit line is 1.990E+30, which means that the mass of the sun is
1.990E+30 kg based on my calculations. The accepted value for the mass of the
sun is 1.9891E+30 kg, so my percent error will be 0.05% as depicted through the
calculations below.

Percent error = [(Calculated Value - Accepted Value)/Accepted Value]*100

= [(1.990E+30 - 1.9891E+30)/1.9891E+30]*100
= 0.05%

IA Practice

One extension of this lab that I could do as an internal assessment is using the
given variables (r and T) to calculate the orbital speed of each planet. This would
allow me to see how higher or lower mean orbital radii and higher or lower orbital
periods affect orbital speeds.