Simplifying Physics--Kepler's Laws of

Planetary Motion-- [for High school students]

N K Srinivasan Ph D
Introduction
The corner stones of Newtonian Physics and much
of later development in physics are the three
laws of motion enunciated by Isaac Newton. The
most interesting and profound 'application' of
these laws is the Kepler's laws for planetary
motion. Kepler gave these laws around 1609 in a
form slight different from the present
formulation.
In my aim to simplify physics for school
students, I present this tutorial on Kepler's
third law and its applications using a
simplified equation. This can be applied not
only for planets but also for satellites
revolving around a planet. A few examples are


given.

Kepler's Laws
Let us first review the three laws of Johannes
Kepler:
1 The first law states that the planets go
around the sun in elliptical orbits.[The sun is
located in one of the foci of the ellipse.]

2 Kepler noticed that the planets move faster in
their orbits when they are closer to the sun;
Therefore the orbital speed is not constant.
The second law states that the areas swept by
the radial line from the planet to the sun in
equal times are equal.{ " Law of Areas".}

3 Kepler's third law is profound and more
interesting. It relates the period of the planet


[T] to its distance from the sun-the semi-major
axis[r].Kepler found that T
2
is proportional to
r
3.

or T
2
= k r
3

It is often called "3/2 power law" since the
period T is proportional to r
3/2
or " Law of
Periods".
[ Note that Johannes Kepler [1571-1630]
developed the three laws nearly 50 years before
Newton discovered the laws of motion.! He was a
master of observational astronomy and had all
the detailed measurements of Tycho Brahe ,
before the invention of telescope.]
The rest of this article is devoted to a
derivation of this third law , developing a
highly simplified form and several applications
of this law.




Derivation of Kepler's third law
This derivation is one of the direct
applications of Newton's law of gravitation and
laws of motion.
The force between a planet and the sun, F:
F = G m.M/ r
2 -----------------(1)

Here G is the Universal gravitational constant,
m mass of the planet and M ,the mass of the sun
and r is the distance between the planet and the
sun.[The value of 'G' was measured by Henri
Cavendish nearly 100 years after Newton, in
1798.]
We equate this to the centripetal force, F', for
the orbital motion of the planet.
F' = m v
2
/r -------------(2)
where v is the orbital velocity.
Even though planets move in elliptical orbits,


they are nearly circular [with small
eccentricity] . Therefore we consider only
circular motion.
Then the period T is given by:
T = 2 r/v
Substituting for v and equating F and F':
G m M / r
2
= m (4
2
)r
2
/(r

T
2
)
'm', mass of the planet gets cancelled.
Simplifying , we get:
T
2
= (4
2
/G M) r
3 -------------(3)

Or T
2
= k r
3

It is remarkable that T depends only on mass of
the sun and its distance from the sun and does
not depend on the mass of the planet.

Value of K in Kepler's law
Now G = 6.67 x 10
-11
N.m
Mass of the sun = M = 2.0 x 10
30
Kg.


K = 39.4784/6.67 x2 x10
19
= 2.9594 x 10
-19
sec
2

/m
3

Then k = [39.4784/(6.67 x 2) ] 10
-19

-----------------------------------------------------(4)

Note that the constant 'k' is expressed in
terms of usual SI units in physics.
[Astronomers are very clever in
computations.Since there is some error in the
calculated value of G, they treat the product GM
as one entity and keep calculating 'GM' together
using their measurements of either 'r' or 'T'.
It is possible to measure both r and T to high
degree of accuracy, even in days before the
invention of telescopes.
Newton derived the Kepler laws from his theory
of universal law of gravitation and in fact
used Kepler's laws to 'confirm' his theory of
gravitation.]




Conversion of units
We shall present now the simplified approach to
Kepler's third law.
Let us convert 'T' and 'r' into more convenient
units, as in classical astronomy.
One earth year Y = 365 x 24 x 3600 secs
= 3.1536 x 10
7
secs
y
2
= 9.945 x 10
14
sec
2

We will express the distance 'r' in terms of
'astronomical units' or AU which is the mean
distance from the earth to the sun:
1 AU = 150 million km = 150 x 10
6
x10
3
meters.
[The present accepted value: 1 AU =149,597,870.7
Km ]

If T is expressed in earth-years and r in AU, we
get:


k = [2.9594 x 10
-19
x 3.375 x 10
33
]/9.945 x 10
14


= 9.9880/9.945 = 1.0043.
Let us take k = 1.00 for all computations.!
Are you surprised at this result?
Nothing to be surprised about or 'revolutionary'
here.
If you write T
2
= k r
3 ,

and if you apply this to Earth , then if r = 1
AU , and T has to be one earth-year, which
means k = 1.
Therefore Kepler's third law takes the simple
form for solar system:
T
2
= r
3 -----------(5)

if T is in earth years and r is in AU.
This is true for all planets going around the
sun!





We shall examine this relation with respect to
some of the planets in the solar system:
Planet ' r' in AU r Planet ' r' in AU r
3 3
=T =T
2 2
T [year] T(text book T [year] T(text book
Mer cur y 0.387 0.05796 0.2407 0.241 Mer cur y 0.387 0.05796 0.2407 0.241
Venus 0.723 0.37793 0.61476 0.615
Mars 1.524 3.5396 0.18814 1.88
Jupiter 5.203 140.852 11.8681 11.86
Saturn 9.523 863.62 29.387 29.5
Uranus 19.208 7086.74 84.183 84
Neptune 30.087 27235.6 165.03 165



Earth and its satellites
We can recalculate the number for 'k' in
Kepler's third law for earth as the central
object, and moon and other satellites revolving


around the earth:
Mass of the earth M = 5.98 x 10
24
kg
K = (4
2
)/(G M) = 39.4784/[6.67x10
-11
x5.98x10
24

] = 0.9897 x 10
-13

Moon's distance and period:
Let us take moon's period as 27.32 days:
T = 27.32 x 24 x 3600 = 2.36 x 10
6
sec
r
3
= T
2
/ K = 5.345 x 10
25

r = 3.83 x 10
5
km
Wikipaedia gives the distance as : 384,403 kms.
----------------------------------------------
Designing a satellite with period 12 hours:
There are many low-earth orbit ['LEO']
satellites used of weather, remote sensing and
military purposes.
You are asked to design a satellite with a
period of 12 hours. Note that the mass of the
satellite does not enter into the equation.[The


mass of the satellite is important , however,
from the requirement of a rocket to launch the
satellite and its cost.]
T = 12 x 3600 seconds = 43200 sec
r
3
= T
2
/k = 18.66 x10
8
/ 0.9897x 10
-13

=
18.85 x 10
21

r = 2.66 x 10
4
km ]

Jupiter's moons
Galileo Galieli discovered the four moons of
Jupiter in 1610.
The period of one of those moons,Ganymede is
7.16 days. Its mean distance from Jupiter is
1070 km.
You can calculate the mass of Jupiter using the
K value and going backward in our computations:
But let us write a simplified relation for
Kepler's third law applied to these moons.


Here is a table of the moons with their period
[around Jupiter] and the distance from Jupiter:
Moon Period [days] Distance [10
3
km]
Io 1.77 422
Europa 3.55 671

Ganymede 7.16 1070
Callisto 16.7 1883

Let us take Ganymede as the reference moon.
One Jupiter-unit , JU,is 1070 x 10
3
km, and
one Jupiter week is 7.16 days.
Then T
2
=r
3
with the units for r in JU and
T in Jupiter-week.
r [ JU] r
3
T
2
T [JW] T days
Io 0.394 0.0612 0.247 1.77
Europa 0.627 0.2465 0.4965 3.555



Ganymede 1.0 1 1 7.16
Callisto 1.76 5.45 2.335 16.72

Therefore Kepler's law can be simplified by
proper choice of units for the distance r and
the period T.

------------------------------------------------
Comments
While the use of SI units for various
computations in physics are essential for
learning this subject, teachers can employ a
simplified approach and easy formulas as given
in this article for introducing the subject and
creating an interest in pursuing these
subjects.Such an approach also helps in ease of
calculations [with the proverbial 'back of the
envelope' calculations ] to get at the root of a


physics problem. It also helps to fix the
concepts easily in the mind of a beginning
student.

References
1 Physics by Douglas Giancoli -- Prentice Hall
2 Understanding Physics --- Isaac Asimov--
3 Matter, earth and Sky --- George Gamow
4 Numerous articles in the Internet.
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