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Chapter 4: Problem 10

Which planets can never be seen at opposition? Which planets can never be seen at inferior conjunction? Explain your answers.

Short Answer

Expert verified
Based on the principles of astronomy, the planets Mercury and Venus (inner planets) can never be seen at opposition since they are located inside the Earth's orbit, while the planets Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune (outer planets) can never be seen at inferior conjunction because they are situated outside the Earth's orbit.

Step by step solution

01

Understanding Planetary Positions

Firstly, it's important to understand that our solar system consists of eight planets revolving around the Sun, with the Earth included. The planets - Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune - are located between the Sun and the Earth, or farther than Earth from the Sun. Inner planets are those that orbit the Sun inside the Earth's orbit (Mercury and Venus), and outer planets are those that orbit the Sun outside the Earth's orbit (Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune).
02

Determining Planets Seen at Opposition

A planet is said to be at opposition when the Earth is located directly between that planet and the Sun. To be in this position, a planet must be outside the Earth's orbit. Thus, all outer planets (Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune) can be seen at opposition. On the contrary, inner planets that lie within the Earth's orbit (Mercury and Venus) will never be seen at opposition because they can't get behind the Earth relative to the Sun.
03

Determining Planets Seen at Inferior Conjunction

A planet is at inferior conjunction when it is located precisely between the Earth and the Sun. Thus, for a planet to be seen at inferior conjunction, it must reside within the Earth's orbit. So, only the inner planets, Mercury and Venus, can be seen at inferior conjunction. Conversely, outer planets that lie outside the Earth's orbit (Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune) will never be seen at inferior conjunction because they can't pass between the Earth and the Sun.

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Most popular questions from this chapter

What is parallax? What did Tycho Brahe conclude from his attempt to measure the parallax of a supernova and a comet?

(a) Search the World Wide Web for information about Kepler. Before he realized that the planets move on elliptical paths, what other models of planetary motion did he consider? What was Kepler's idea of "the music of the spheres"? (b) Search the World Wide Web for information about Galileo. What were his contributions to physics? Which of Galileo's new ideas were later used by Newton to construct his laws of motion? (c) Search the World Wide Web for information about Newton. What were some of the contributions that he made to physics other than developing his laws of motion? What contributions did he make to mathematics?

How did Copernicus determine that the orbits of Mercury and Venus must be smaller than the Earth's orbit? How did he determine that the orbits of Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn must be larger than the Earth's orbit?

The mass of Saturn is approximately 100 times that of Earth, and the semimajor axis of Saturn's orbit is approximately \(10 \mathrm{AU}\). To this approximation, how does the gravitational force that the Sun exerts on Saturn compare to the gravitational force that the Sun exerts on the Earth? How do the accelerations of Saturn and the Earth compare?

Suppose that you traveled to a planet with 4 times the mass and 4 times the diameter of the Earth. Would you weigh more or less on that planet than on Earth? By what factor?
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