Assignment

1. How will you describe the shape of the orbt of the planets?
According to Kepler’s first law means, planet’s orbit is elliptical. All planets revolve in the same
direction with the sun at the center. He also mentioned that he orbit of a planet isn’t always the
same distance from the Sun. For instance, the closest the Earth gets to the Sun is 91 million miles
or about 147 million kilometers. The term for the closest approach is called perihelion while the term
for when a planet is furthest from the Sun is called aphelion.

2. Where do planets move around? How do they move, clockwise or

counter-clockwise?
According to Kepler’s first law means, planet’s orbit is elliptical. All planets revolve in the same
direction with the sun at the center. He also mentioned that he orbit of a planet isn’t always the
same distance from the Sun. For instance, the closest the Earth gets to the Sun is 91 million miles
or about 147 million kilometers. The term for the closest approach is called perihelion while the term
for when a planet is furthest from the Sun is called aphelion.

3. Do all planets revolve at the same rate? Rotate at the same rate?
The Sun, planets, and asteroids all rotate counter-clockwise, as do the majority of the objects in our
solar system. This is owing to the initial conditions in the gas and dust cloud that emerged our solar
system. It just so happened that the rotation was counter-clockwise.
If you imagine viewing the solar system from a point high above the North Pole of the Sun, you
would immediately notice that all of the planets orbit the Sun in a counter-clockwise direction and
that most of the planets also rotate on their own axes in a counter-clockwise direction. Planets do
all rotate in the same general direction (prograde motion), with the exceptions of Venus, Uranus and
Dwarf plane Pluto (retrograde motion). These differences are believed to stem from collisions that
occurred late in the planets'

4. What’s the difference between prograde and retrograde?

Retrograde motion in the space is the motion of any object in the opposite direction as their sun
rotates whereas, prograde motion is the motion of the object in the same direction of their sun
(central object). Our 6 planets (Mercury, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune) and Sun rotate in
the same clockwise direction, so these motions are called prograde motion.

5. Differentiate Inner terresterial and Outer planets

In our Solar System, astronomers often categorize the planets into two groups — the inner planets
and the outer planets. The inner planets are closer to the Sun and are made of materials with high
melting-points. That is why these planets are smaller and rockier. The outer planets are further
away, larger and made up mostly of gas. They are also called as “gas giants”. The inner planets (in
order of distance from the sun, closest to furthest) are Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars. After an
asteroid belt comes the outer planets, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. The interesting thing I
found out in the internet is, in some other planetary systems discovered, the gas giants are actually
quite close to the sun.