23.05.2014 Views

3. THE GALILEAN REVOLUTION: EARTH'S PLACE IN THE SOLAR ...

3. THE GALILEAN REVOLUTION: EARTH'S PLACE IN THE SOLAR ...

3. THE GALILEAN REVOLUTION: EARTH'S PLACE IN THE SOLAR ...

SHOW MORE
SHOW LESS

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.

B. ORBITS<br />

Kepler showed that planets orbiting the sun and moons orbiting planets do not travel on<br />

circles, but on ellipses, with the central body at one of the two foci:<br />

The long axis of an ellipse is called the major axis. Half of the major axis is called the<br />

semi-major axis, which is usually denoted a.<br />

9

Hooray! Your file is uploaded and ready to be published.

Saved successfully!

Ooh no, something went wrong!