KEPLERS LAWS OF PLANETARY MOTION

1. Introduction We are now in a position to apply what we have learned about the cross product and vector valued functions to derive Keplers Laws of planetary motion. These laws were empirically determined in the early 1600s by the German mathematician and astronomer Johannes Kepler, based on large amounts of experimental data that had been collected in the previous century by the Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe. The three laws are as follows: (1) A planet revolves around the sun in an elliptical orbit with the sun at one focus. (2) The line joining the sun to a planet sweeps out equal areas in equal times. (3) The square of the period of revolution of a planet is proportional to the cube of the length of the semi-major axis of its orbit. In 1687 Sir Isaac Newton showed that these laws follow from his second law of motion, F = ma, and his Law of Universal Gravitation: The gravitational force between two point particles is attractive, and proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them. If we put the sun at the origin of our coordinate system, and denote by r the vector from the sun to the planet in question, then the gravitational force F on the planet is: GM m r (1.1) F = r2 where r = |r| and r = r is the unit vector in the r direction. The masses of the r m3 two bodies are M and m, and G = 6.67 1011 kgs2 is the univeral constant of gravitation. The minus sign indicates that the force is attractive. We will follow Newton (with modern notation) and derive Keplers three laws from F = ma and equation 1.1. 2. The Geometry of the Ellipse There are two useful ways to describe an ellipse in R2 . It can be described as the set of points (x, y) which satisfy: y2 x2 + 2 = 1. a2 b This ellipse is centred at the origin and passes through the points (a, 0) and (0, b). The length of the semi-major axis is a and that of the semi-minor axis is b. (We can assume that a > b without loss of generality.) See Figure 2. The scalar c = a2 b2 is called the focal length of the ellipse. This gives the two focal points of the ellipse as (c, 0). You may have also seen the denition of an ellipse as the set of points in the plane for which the sum of the distances to the two focal points is constant. To see that this is equivalent, and to help derive (2.1)
1

KEPLERS LAWS OF PLANETARY MOTION

y Ellipse 2 x 2 a 2 =1 2

y b

(c,b) 1 0 1 0 a (a,0) b (a 1 0 + c,0) 1 0 x

1 0 1 0

1 0 1 0

(c,0)

2 2 2 c = a b

K a = 1 e2

K r = 1 e cos( )

b =

K 1e 2

c =

Ke 1e 2

Figure 1. An Ellipse

Keplers Laws, we need to describe an ellipse in polar coordinates. Our claim is that the polar equation (2.2) r= K 1 e cos()

describes an ellipse centred on the x-axis but with the origin at one focus. Here K is a positive constant, and 0 e < 1, where e is the eccentricity of the ellipse. If e = 0, then r = K and the equation describes a circle of radius K centred at the origin. K The maximum value of r occurs when = 0: rmax = 1e > K and the minimum K value corresponds to = : rmin = 1+e < K. In the case of planetary motion about the sun, the point in the orbit of minimum distance (closest approach) is called perihelion and the point of maximum distance is called aphelion. Twice the length of the semi-major axis is the sum of these two lengths: 2a = rmin + rmax = This gives us (2.3) a= K 1 e2 2K 1 e2

KEPLERS LAWS OF PLANETARY MOTION

as the length of the semi-major axis, and this gets very large when e approaches 1. The center of the ellipse is at (x0 , 0) where (2.4) x0 = a rmin = Ke = ea 1 e2

When we are at the top vertex of the ellipse, cos() = x0 . We can rearrange r K equation 2.2 to r = K + ex0 = 1e2 using equation 2.4. Now the Pythagorean theorem tells us that the length of the semi-minor axis, b, is given by: (2.5) b= K r2 x2 = 0 1 e2

You can check that this description is indeed an ellipse centred at (x0 , 0) by algebraically transforming equation 2.2 to: x
Ke (1e2 ) 2 K (1e2 ) 2

y2
K 1e2 2

=1

and comparing with equation 2.1. It remains to prove the focal property of the ellipse: One focus is at (0, 0) and the other is at (2x0 , 0) and we need to show that the sum of the distances from any point on the ellipse to these two focal points is constant. Let P be a point on the ellipse, and let r be the distance to the origin and s the distance to the second focus (2x0 , 0). Then the law of cosines gives: From equation 2.2, we get r cos() = rK , and using also equation 2.4, some e manipulation yields: 2 s2 = (r 2a) Since r < 2a we need to take the negative square root: s = 2a r. This gives r + s = 2a = constant as claimed. 3. Some Useful Notation in Polar Coordinates With our polar coordinate description of ellipses in hand, we still need some more notation before we can tackle Keplers Laws. We denote by r the vector from the origin (which will be the sun) to the planet. This has polar coordinates (r, ), so |r| = r and the unit vector r in the r direction is: r = cos() + sin() r From this we can construct another unit vector , perpendicular to r and in the direction determined by the requirement that r = k: (3.1) r= (3.2) = sin() + cos() As the planet moves around the sun, its polar coordinates (r(t), (t)) will be functions of t. If we let a dot denote dierentiation with respect to t, then from equations 3.1 and 3.2, we obtain (remembering is a function of t): (3.3) r = sin() + cos() = s2 = r2 + 4x2 4rx0 cos() 0

KEPLERS LAWS OF PLANETARY MOTION

and the relation d = cos() sin() = r d Finally, we have r = r and upon dierentiation and using the product rule and r equation 3.3, (3.5) v = r = r + rr = r + r r r (3.4) and from r = 0 and v 2 = |v|2 = v v, we have: (3.6) v 2 = r2 + r2 2 We are now ready to derive Keplers Laws. 4. Conservation of Angular Momentum Choose a coordinate system so that the sun is at the origin, with mass M , and the planet we are studying has mass m. Since the sun contains 99% of the mass of the solar system, it is a reasonable assumption to ignore the gravitational eects of other planets. The planet has position vector r, and we dene the angular momentum vector L to be: (4.1) If we dierentiate this equation using the product rule we get: d (4.2) L = r mv + r mv = 0 dt where we have used r = v and a = v is a multiple of r from equation 1.1. This says that L is a constant vector, or the angular momentum is conserved. Since by its denition, L is always perpendicular to r, the motion of the planet is conned to a plane perpendicular to L. We can choose our coordinate system so that L = Lk, where L = |L|. Now using equation 3.5, we have: (4.3) r Lk = r mv = m rr r + r2 = mr2 k r and so we have the useful relation L = mr2 . 5. Conservation of Energy The potential energy U of a planet in the gravitational eld of the sun is: GM m U= r 1 and the kinetic energy is 2 m|v|2 . This gives us the total energy E: GM m 1 mv 2 2 r Dierentiating this equation with respect to t, dE GM m dr = mr r + dt r2 dt But r = r r, so dr = rr . This gives dt r (5.1) E= (5.2) L = r mv

dE GM m r = 0 = r mr + dt r2

KEPLERS LAWS OF PLANETARY MOTION

because the term in parentheses is zero by equation 1.1 and F = mr. So the total energy E is conserved. Since the kinetic energy is always non-negative, we have the inequality GM m E r From this equation we see that if the total energy E < 0, we can rearrange this inequality to GM m r |E| which says that the orbit is bounded. This is the case for planets, which have elliptical orbits. It is also possible for an object to have E = 0 or E > 0, in which case the orbits are parabolas or hyperbolas, respectively. The object is not in a closed orbit, it just passes around the sun and leaves the solar system permanently. Hyperbolic orbits are typical if the incoming object has a high enough velocity to escape the suns gravitational pull. From equation 3.6 and L = mr2 , we have the following expression for the energy E: E= 1 2 2 m r + 2 GM m L2 2 2mr r

We can use methods of single variable calculus to nd, as a function of r, the minimum value for the terms in parentheses. And since the rst term in the expression for E is always non-negative, it can be shown that: G2 M 2 m3 2L2 This can be rearranged to the inequality E 2EL2 0 G2 M 2 m3 which serves to dene the nonnegative dimensionless scalar e. Finally, in terms of e, the energy becomes: e2 1 E = G2 M 2 m 3 (5.3) e2 = 1 +
2L2

So bounded orbits correspond to negative energy which correspond to e < 1. 6. Keplers Laws The area A(t) swept out by the line from the sun to the planet, from the angle = 0 to = (t) is:
(t)

(6.1)

A(t) =
0

1 2 r d 2

This follows from approximating a very small arc of length by an isosceles 1 triangle of side lengths r(), which has area 2 r2 . Now dierentiating and using the fundamental theorem of calculus and equation 4.3, we have: d dA d 1 L A(t) = = r2 = dt d dt 2 2m Thus the area is swept out at a constant rate, which is Keplers second law. (6.2)

KEPLERS LAWS OF PLANETARY MOTION

From the chain rule, a = v = (6.3)

dv d

we obtain, using equations 1.1 and 4.3: = GM m r L

dv = d

GM r2 r L mr 2

Now by comparing with equation 3.4, we see: GM m +C (6.4) v= L for some constant vector C. Before continuing, we notice that since is a unit vector, we have GM m |v(t) C| = L for all time t. This is sometimes called Hamiltons theorem. It says that as the planet moves around in its orbit, its velocity vector traces out a circle of radius and centre C if we think of v(t) as having its tail at the origin. At this point, we have chosen our origin and our k direction, but we are still free to orient the and axes. Let us choose these axes, and the scalar e, so that eGM m C= L The scalar e is determined by the velocity v0 of the planet at the point in its orbit corresponding to = 0: (1 e)GM m v0 = L Note that for the planet to revolve around the sun counterclockwise, e 1 and e = 1 corresponds to v0 = 0, which is the limiting case when the planet is innitely far away from the sun at = 0 and has zero speed. This is a parabolic orbit. The bounded orbits occur for e < 1, and a more careful analysis can be done to show that this is exactly the same parameter as in equation 5.3, which we call the eccentricity of the orbit. Now substituting equation 6.4 into equation 4.1, we have: GM m2 r GM m2 r r ( e) = (1 e cos())k L L which can be rearranged to yield (6.5) Lk = (6.6) r=
L2 GM m2

R=

GM m L

1 e cos()

L which is an ellipse with constant K = GM m2 , since 0 e < 1. This is Keplers rst law. Now from the second law, the area is swept out at a constant rate by the orbit, so the total area of the ellipse is equal to the rate multiplied by the period T , which from equation 6.2 is: L T = ab Area = 2m since the area of an ellipse with semi-major axis a and semi-minor axis b is ab. Squaring this equation, 4m2 T 2 = 2 2 a2 b2 L

K 1 e cos()

KEPLERS LAWS OF PLANETARY MOTION

But from equations 2.3 and 2.5, the semi-minor axis b is equal to b2 = Thus we have: (6.7) T2 = K2 = Ka 1 e2

4m2 2 2 2 4m2 4 2 3 L2 a b = 2 2 a2 a= a 2 2 L L GM m GM
2

4 Thus we have nally arrived at Keplers third law: T 2 = GM a3 . The square of the period of the planets orbit is proportional to the cube of the semi-major axis, where the constant of proportionality is independent of the mass m of the planet: it depends only on the mass M of the sun and on the gravitational constant G.