Chapter 4: Planetary Motions
Learning Objectives
By reading this chapter, attending lecture, and reviewing lecture content, you will be able to:
- Predict how the law of conservation of angular momentum should impact the orbital periods, rotation periods, and axial tilts of the planets
- Define tidal locking, explain how tidal forces are generated, and list some examples of planetary bodies that are tidally locked
- Explain how tidal locking affects the orbital dynamics of Mercury and Venus, including why neither planet is perfectly tidally locked
- List and describe Kepler’s three laws of planetary motion and identify which law led to the discovery of Neptune
- Describe how planetary bodies (or manmade satellites) remain in orbit without falling into or escaping from the planet they orbit around
- List the reasons why planets might have orbital characteristics (e.g., rotation periods, axial tilts) that deviate from what would be expected based on physical laws
- Identify and explain the physical phenomena that can cause the orbit of a particular planet to change over time
- Make observations and identify trends about planetary motion from a table of collected data
