How does a planet's distance from the sun effect the length of its orbital cycle?
1 answer:
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Answer:
- The procedure is: solve the quadratic equation for
.
Explanation:
This question assumes uniformly accelerated motion, for which the distance d a particle travels in time t is given by the general equation:
That is a quadratic equation, where the independent variable is the time .
Thus, the procedure that will find the time t at which the distance value is known to be D is to solve the quadratic equation for .
To solve it you start by changing the equation to the general form of the quadratic equations, rearranging the terms:
Some times that equation may be solved by factoring, and always it can be solved by using the quadratic formula:
Where:
That may have two solutions. Some times one of the solution makes no physical sense (for example time cannot be negative) but others the two solutions are valid.
