Using the concepts of ellipse and the universal law of gravitation it can be found that the correct answer is:
a) The planet’s path around the sun is not a perfect circle and is shaped like an oval.
The universal gravitational law establishes that the force between two bodies is proportional to their mass and inversely proportional to the square of their distance, when one of the bodies has much greater mass than the other, the body with greater mass experiences less rotational acceleration.
In the case of the sun and the planet, the sun is many orders of magnitude more massive than the planets, therefore, it is almost fixed in the center and the lighter planets rotate around it, where the sun is in the focus of the ellipse orbit.
In the special case that the two foci coincide, there is a circular movement, but the most general is that there is some separation between the foci, so the movement is elliptical with the sun located in one of the foci.
Let's analyze the claims of this exercise
a) True. When the orbit is not a perfect circle, you have an elliptical orbit, this is the most common case.
b) False. The axis of the planet has no effect on the orbit, it affects the intensity of the radiation that reaches the planets
c) False. Circular motion is a special case of elliptical motion when the two foci coincide
d) False. The axis of the planet influences the intensity of radiation reaching the surface, but not the shape of the orbit of the plant.
Using the concepts of ellipse it can be found that the correct answer is:
a) The planet’s path around the sun is not a perfect circle and is shaped like an oval.
learn more about planetary motion here:
brainly.com/question/4978861