Home › AP Physics C: Mechanics › Physics › Circular Motion and Gravitation › Under the first of Kepler's laws, the orbit of e…
Under the first of Kepler's laws, the orbit of each planet about the Sun is an:
AEclipse
BEstuary
CEnvelope
DEllipse
Answer & Solution
Correct answer: D. Ellipse
1. Orbits are not perfect circles.
2. They are closed curves with two foci rather than one centre.
3. The orbit of each planet about the Sun is an ellipse with the Sun at one focus.
4. So the answer is an ellipse.
_Source: OpenStax College Physics for AP Courses 2e (CC BY 4.0), Ch 6 'Uniform Circular Motion and Gravitation', sections 6.1-6.6_
Related questions
How many tides per day result from the gravity of the Moon acting on Earth?An ellipse is a closed curve where the sum of the distances to the two foci is:Cavendish's experiment was difficult because the attraction he measured was between two:The gravitational forces two bodies exert on each other have magnitudes that are:Under the second of Kepler's laws, the line from the Sun to a planet sweeps out:The universal gravitational constant is determined in which way?In a rotating non-inertial frame, the fictitious force you feel is called:Gravitational force is inversely proportional to the square of the: