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Eccentricity of Orbiting Planets

Ellipses in the real world

Equation of Ellipse | Major Axis of Ellipse| Minor Axis of Ellipse|Vertices| Co-vetices | focus of an ellipse | Is a circle an ellipse? | Eccentricty of Ellipse | area of an ellipse | Orbits of Planets as ellipses | Translate ellipse
The eccentricy of an ellipse is a measure of how nearly circular the ellipse is. Eccentricity is found by the following formula
eccentricity = c/a
  • where c is the distance from the center to the focus of the ellipse
  • a is the distance from the center to a vertex
    • The orbit of planets in our solar system are ellipses with the sun as a focus.


    Practice Problems

    Use the formula for eccentricity to determine the eccentricity of the imaginary planet's orbit.
    Answer
    Use the eccentricity of the ellipse to determine where the focus (sun) is in the imaginary example below
    Answer
    Finding eccentricity of ellipse
    The eccentricity of the orbit of the planet below is 0.8 and the value of c is 20. What is the value of this planet's semi-major axis (semi-major axis = a in ellipse's equation)?
    Answer
    eccentricity of orbit ellipse problem 3


    Eccentricities and Orbits of Real Planets in our Solar System



    The eccentricity of mars is.093 and the value of c is 132,000,000 miles. What is the value of Mar's semi-major axis (semi-major axis = a in ellipse's equation)?
    Answer
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