What is the relationship between orbital speed and distance from Jupiter for these moons as a group?
For elliptical orbits, the point of closest approach of a planet to the Sun is called the perihelion. It is labeled point A in (Figure). The farthest point is the aphelion and is labeled point B in the figure. For the Moon’s orbit about Earth, those points are called the perigee and apogee, respectively.
What did the discovery of Jupiter’s moons prove?
By Jan. 15, Galileo correctly concluded that they were not stars at all but moons orbiting around Jupiter, providing strong evidence for the Copernican theory that most celestial objects did not revolve around the Earth. As their discoverer, Galileo had naming rights to Jupiter’s satellites.
What did Galileo use to discover Jupiter’s moons?
Jan 7, 1610 CE: Galileo Discovers Jupiter’s Moons. On January 7, 1610, Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei discovered, using a homemade telescope, four moons orbiting the planet Jupiter.
Why do some moons orbit faster around Jupiter?
So, the Jovian moons are falling towards Jupiter, but they just keep missing. The moons have different orbital speeds because they are at different distances from Jupiter. Here’s a to-scale image showing the relative distances.
How do the orbital speeds of planets farther from the sun compare to the orbital speeds of planets closer to the sun?
A planet’s orbital speed changes, depending on how far it is from the Sun. The closer a planet is to the Sun, the stronger the Sun’s gravitational pull on it, and the faster the planet moves. The farther it is from the Sun, the weaker the Sun’s gravitational pull, and the slower it moves in its orbit.
Why does orbital velocity decrease with distance?
Is this due to the gravitational field being weaker at longer distances? In that case, the answer is that orbital speeds decrease because V itself increases at longer distances. This is simply conservation of energy: 12mv2+mV(|r−r0|)=E, and if V becomes less negative then v2 must be smaller.
How did Jupiter’s moons prove the heliocentric theory?
Clearly they orbited Jupiter in much the same way as our Moon orbits the Earth. And if moons could orbit a planet, then perhaps it was true that the Earth orbited the Sun after all. With this discovery and his observations of the phases of Venus later that same year, Galileo gave us proof of a heliocentric universe.
Did you know facts about Jupiter?
Ten Interesting Facts About Jupiter
- Jupiter Is Massive:
- Jupiter Cannot Become A Star:
- Jupiter Is The Fastest Spinning Planet In The Solar System:
- The Clouds On Jupiter Are Only 50 km Thick:
- The Great Red Spot Has Been Around For A Long Time:
- Jupiter Has Rings:
- Jupiter’s Magnetic Field Is 14 Times Stronger Than Earth’s:
How old are Jupiter’s moons?
At 20 to 180 million years old, the surface is fairly young. It is possible that an extensive ocean beneath the surface harbors life. Ganymede is the third Galilean moon from Jupiter and the largest of the four. This low-density moon is about the size of Mercury but has about half the mass.
What method of observation did Galileo Galilei perform during his observation of Jupiter and its moons?
What’s This Activity About? In 1610, Galileo used his new spyglass (telescope) to observe Jupiter, and found that it had four moons go- ing around it. These were the first moons found around another world, and the first bodies indisputably orbiting something besides the Earth.
Where is Jupiter compared to the moon?
Jupiter is 373 million miles (600 million kilometers) away from Earth, while the moon is only 233,000 miles (375,000 km) distant.
What is the relationship between the speed of planets and their distance from the Sun?
What is the orbital period of the moons of Jupiter?
The moons of Jupiter have orbital periods ranging from seven hours to almost three Earth years. Some of the orbits are nearly circular, while the moons farthest from Jupiter have more irregular orbits.
How were the moons of other planets discovered?
Most of the moons were discovered in the late 1970s and later as a result of several explorations by automated spacecraft, including NASA’s Voyager in 1979 and Galileo in 1995. Not only is Jupiter the largest planet in the solar system, it is also the most massive at more than 300 times the mass of Earth.
How do you find the mass of Jupiter’s Moon?
Computing Jupiter’s mass with Jupiter’s moon Io. We can double-check our answer, using Jupiter’s moon Io, whereby a = Io’s mean distance = 1.097 Lunar Distances (LD), and p = Io’s orbital period = 0.0648 lunar. Computing Jupiter’s mass with either Jupiter’s moon Callisto or Jupiter’s moon Io gives us pretty much the same answer.
Why do we call Jupiter’s moons Galilean moons?
These four satellites are often called the Galilean moons to honor the Italian astronomer Galileo, who discovered them in 1610. Now is a great time to look for Jupiter’s four largest moons because the king of planets is near opposition and thus closest to Earth in its orbit.