The Tychonic Method for Calculating the Ratio between the Eccentricities of Mars

2021 ◽  
Vol 52 (2) ◽  
pp. 212-234
Author(s):  
Christián C. Carman
Keyword(s):  
The Sun ◽  

In Chapter 16 of Astronomia nova, Kepler describes and applies a method for finding the parameters of what he will call the vicarious hypothesis: a model that still assumes circular orbits and an equant point, but does not assume the bisection of the eccentricity, that is, that the center of the orbit is halfway between the equant point and the Sun. The method allows Kepler to find independently both centers in a very elegant way, but its application is tedious. He confesses that he had to apply it seventy times over a period of 5 years to obtain trustable results. Years earlier, when Kepler arrived to work with Tycho, he found that Tycho and Longomontanus had rejected bisection and somehow had obtained a ratio between eccentricities that, as Kepler himself highlights, happened to be very close to the one Kepler would later find after so much effort. Kepler does not say how Tycho and Longomontanus obtained their parameters and, to the best of my knowledge, there is no single published work that attempts to answer this question. Still, it is a very interesting question to ask how they arrived at values so close to those that took so much pain for Kepler to obtain. Recently, I published a paper describing a method Tycho used for finding Saturn’s parameters. In this paper, I show that by applying this method to the data of Tychonic observations of oppositions, it is possible to arrive at parameters very close to those that we know Tycho found. In this way, I argue that this is the method Tycho applied for obtaining Mars’s parameters. The simplicity of the Tychonic method contrasts with the complexity of Kepler’s.

Author(s):  
Charles Dickens ◽  
Dennis Walder

Dombey and Son ... Those three words conveyed the one idea of Mr. Dombey's life. The earth was made for Dombey and Son to trade in, and the sun and moon were made to give them light.' The hopes of Mr Dombey for the future of his shipping firm are centred on his delicate son Paul, and Florence, his devoted daughter, is unloved and neglected. When the firm faces ruin, and Dombey's second marriage ends in disaster, only Florence has the strength and humanity to save her father from desolate solitude. This new edition contains Dickens's prefaces, his working plans, and all the original illustrations by ‘Phiz’. The text is that of the definitive Clarendon edition. It has been supplemented by a wide-ranging Introduction, highlighting Dickens's engagement with his times, and the touching exploration of family relationships which give the novel added depth and relevance.


2007 ◽  
Vol 3 (S248) ◽  
pp. 290-291 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Vecchiato ◽  
M. G. Lattanzi ◽  
M. Gai ◽  
R. Morbidelli

AbstractGAME (Gamma Astrometric Measurement Experiment) is a concept for an experiment whose goal is to measure from space the γ parameter of the Parameterized Post-Newtonian formalism, by means of a satellite orbiting at 1 AU from the Sun and looking as close as possible to its limb. This technique resembles the one used during the solar eclipse of 1919, when Dyson, Eddington and collaborators measured for the first time the gravitational bending of light. Simple estimations suggest that, possibly within the budget of a small mission, one could reach the 10−6level of accuracy with ~106observations of relatively bright stars at about 2° apart from the Sun. Further simulations show that this result could be reached with only 20 days of measurements on stars ofV≤ 17 uniformly distributed. A quick look at real star densities suggests that this result could be greatly improved by observing particularly crowded regions near the galactic center.


1971 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
pp. 413-421 ◽  
Author(s):  
B.G. Marsden

There has long been speculation as to whether comets evolve into asteroidal objects. On the one hand, in the original version of the Oort (1950) hypothesis, the cometary cloud was supposed to have formed initially from the same material that produced the minor planets; and an obvious corollary was that the main physical difference between comets and minor planets would be that the latter had long since lost their icy surfaces on account of persistent exposure to strong solar radiation (Öpik, 1963). However, following a suggestion by Kuiper (1951), it is now quite widely believed that, whereas the terrestrial planets and minor planets condensed in the inner regions of the primordial solar nebula, icy objects such as comets would have formed more naturally in the outer parts, perhaps even beyond the orbit of Neptune (Cameron, 1962; Whipple, 1964a). Furthermore, recent studies of the evolution of the short-period comets indicate that it is not possible to produce the observed orbital distribution from the Oort cloud, even when multiple encounters with Jupiter are considered (Havnes, 1970). We must now seriously entertain the possibility that most of the short-period orbits evolved directly from low-inclination, low-eccentricity orbits with perihelia initially in the region between, say, the orbits of Saturn and Neptune, and that these comets have never been in the traditional cloud at great distances from the Sun.


JOGED ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Dewi Sinta Fajawati

Bulan merupakan sumber inspiratif dalam penggarapan karya tari ini. Secara ilmu pengetahuan, Bulan adalah benda langit yang disebut satelit, satelit satu-satunya yang dimiliki Bumi dan tercipta secara alami. Banyak teori yang mengatakan tentang terbentuknya Bulan, salah satunya adalah teori Big bang atau dentuman besar. Pada dasarnya Bulan hanyalah sebuah Benda besar berbentuk bulat yang tidak bisa bercahaya, cahaya yang kita lihat pada malam hari merupakan refleksi dari cahaya matahari. Akan tetapi keindahannya memang tidak bisa dipungkiri, karena dia paling bercahaya diantara hamparan langit yang gelap. Cahayanya tidak selalu terang, bahkan tidak selalu bulat, terkadang hanya terlihat setengah atau terlihat seperti sabit..            Penata tari memetaforakan objek bulan yang berada di tempat yang sangat tinggi sebagai sebuah cita-cita yang ingin dicapai. Seringkali lagu anak-anak yang menjadi pengalaman auditif penata tari, menjadikan bulan sebagai objek yang ingin digapai, misal lagu ‘Ambilkan Bulan Bu’. Namun intisari yang akan dipakai dalam penggarapan koregrafinya adalah tentang fase bulan yang tercipta. Bersumber dari rangsang awal melihat bulan atau rangsang visual, penata tari menginterpretasikan fase-fase bulan yang terjadi sebagai fase kehidupan yang dijalani untuk menggapai sebuah cita-cita tersebut.            Koreografi diwujudkan dalam bentuk kelompok dengan membagi dua karate penari. Delapan penari merupakan simbolisasi Bulan, dan satu penari sebagai manusia yang bercita-cita. Dengan bentuk tari dramatik, penyajiannya dibagi menjadi 5 adegan, yaitu Introduksi Big bang, Adegan 1 Moon happen, Adegan 2 Mengejar Impian, Adegan 3 Dancing with Moon, dan Ending ‘Catch Your Dream’. The moon is the essential inspirations of this choreograph. Theoretically, the moon is a sky object which is called as satellite. The one and only naturally created satellite belongs to the planet Earth. There are many theories that explain how the moon was created. One of those theories is Big Bang theory or massive crash. Basically, the moon is just a huge circle thing which is unable to shine its glow. The light that we experience in the evening is the reflection of the sun. However, thebeauty of the moonlight is undeniable as it has the significant light within the darkest night sky. Its light is not always the strongest, even it’s not always circle (full), every so often it is seemed only the half part of it or crescent moon.            The choreographer interpreted the moon that belongs in the highest as the goals that she wants to reach. Most of the time, the children songs (lullaby) that pick the moon as the main object that is desired to be reached, for example the song “Ambilkan Bulan, Bu”. The essential idea that is explored in this choreograph is the creational phase of the moon itself. It was started by way of visual reaction when the choreographer observed the moon, she interpret the moon’s phases as the phases in human’s life which are gone through to reaching their goals. Fall and recovery, passionate, and even sometimes they give it in, are interpreted from the moonlight. The full moon which has the brightest and the most perfect light is likened as the strong spirit. The crescent moon with its soft light is interpreted as low spirit and unconfident.             This in-group-choreograph is separated into two characters with 8 female dancers that are the symbolization of the moon and the other one female dancer symbolizes a human with aspire. With dramatic dance form, this choreograph is presented into five parts, including introduction part of Big Bang, Moon Happen in part one, Chasing Dream is part two, Dancing With The Moon in part three, Catch Your Dream in the ending part.


Author(s):  
Douglas V. Hoyt ◽  
Kenneth H. Shatten

Our sun is a typical “second generation,” or G2, star nearly 4.5 billion years old. The sun is composed of 92.1% hydrogen and 7.8% helium gas, as well as 0.1% of such all-important heavy elements as oxygen, carbon, nitrogen, silicon, magnesium, neon, iron, sulfur, and so forth in decreasing amounts (see Appendix 3). The heavy elements are generated from nucleosynthetic processes in stars, novae, and supernovae after the original formation of the Universe. This has led to the popular statement that we are, literally, the “children of the stars” because our bodies are composed of the elements formed inside stars. From astronomical studies of stellar structure, we know that, since its beginnings, the sun’s luminosity has gradually increased by about 30%. This startling conclusion has raised the so-called faint young sun climate problem: if the sun were even a few percent fainter in the past, then Earth could have been covered by ice. In this frozen state, it might not have warmed because the ice would reflect most of the incoming solar radiation back into space. Although volcanic aerosols covering the ice, early oceans moderating the climate, and other theories have been suggested to circumvent the “faint young sun” problem, how Earth escaped the ice catastrophe remains uncertain. How can the sun generate vast amounts of energy for billions of years and still keep shining? Before nuclear physics, scientists believed the sun generated energy by means of slow gravitational collapse. Still, this process would only let the sun shine about 30 million years before its energy was depleted. To shine longer, the sun requires another energy source. We now believe that a chain of nuclear reactions occurs inside the sun, with four hydrogen nuclei fusing into one helium nucleus at the sun’s center. Because the four hydrogen nuclei have more mass than the one helium nucleus, the resulting mass deficit is converted into energy according to Einstein’s famous formula E = mc2. The energy, produced near the sun’s center, creates a central temperature of about 15 million degrees Kelvin (°K).


2014 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
pp. 7-15
Author(s):  
Santa Bahadur Pun

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Nepal in August 2014 was instrumental in reinvigorating the stalled 6,480 MW Pancheshwar Multipurpose Project. In particular, the one billion US Dollar soft loan for infrastructures that Modi offered to Nepal has generated much enthusiasm. As the Mahakali Treaty was ratified in September 1996, and as public memory is short, this article reverts back 18 years ago into the heady days when the Water Resources Minister, Pashupati SJB Rana, publicly claimed that the sun would now begin to ‘rise from the west’! At that time, even the leaders in the opposing camp (the CPN-UML), started to count their chickens in billions and billions of rupees accruing from the sale of electricity to India. Today, that ‘Som Sharma euphoria’ has again started to percolate among our political leaders. The article, hence, poses six vital issues that need to be ‘fixed’ before the Pancheshwar Multipurpose Project can begin to taxi along the runway: i) validity of Rashtriya Sankalpas/national strictures; ii) re-constituting the all-party Parliamentary Monitoring Joint Committee; iii) export of energy and its pricing principle; iv) formation of Mahakali River Commission; v) equal sharing of Mahakali waters after the completion of the Pancheshwar Project; and vi) determining the origin of Mahakali River. The author believes that until these vital issues are fixed in an amicable and good faith manner, the viability of the Pancheshwar Multipurpose Project will again be in doubt !DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3126/hn.v15i0.11284HYDRO Nepal JournalJournal of Water Energy and EnvironmentVolume: 15, 2014, JulyPage: 7-15


1987 ◽  
Vol 115 ◽  
pp. 239-253 ◽  
Author(s):  
L.F. Rodríguez

We review the observational evidence for interstellar and circumstellar size gaseous structures that appear to be collimating the bipolar outflows observed in regions of star formation. In particular, there is growing evidence for circumstellar disk-like objects that may be related to a protoplanetary cloud like the one that once surrounded the Sun. There are similarities between these disks around young stars and that found around the main sequence star β Pictoris. Both flattened structures around L1551 IRS5 and β Pictoris appear to have an inner “hole” with radius of a few tens of AU. On the other hand, there is observational support for focusing and collimation processes acting on the same source from tens of AU (circumstellar dimensions) to tenths of pc (interstellar dimensions).


1955 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-40
Author(s):  
J. G. Porter

Most people know something about space ships nowadays, and probably think that navigation in space is quite a simple matter; at any rate, it is a subject that is glossed over very briefly in most books on the subject. In my view, space navigation is not a simple matter, and it has certainly not received the attention it deserves. Navigation on the Earth is easy, because of the one important fact that you are on the surface of the Earth. A couple of sights, measuring the angles from two stars down to the horizon, together with the azimuths of the stars and the distance from the centre of the Earth, will give an exact statement of position. But out in space there is no Earth, no horizon—in fact nothing whatever to use as a basis of measurement. Clearly then, two angles are not enough; a third one is needed, to give a sort of tripod of sights—two of the legs being anchored to two planets (or the Sun and a planet) because their positions in space at any time are known, and the distance between them can be used as a base-line. The solution of all the triangles involved is indeed a difficult problem, but there is also the impossibility of making three simultaneous observations. It might be thought that one could do as at sea and take one sight followed later by others, making allowance for the motion of the ship in the intervals. However, this involves the idea of dead reckoning, which, although a useful concept at sea, is quite impossible to apply in space, as the following example shows.


Author(s):  
Zoltán Kovács ◽  
Zoltán Udvarnoki ◽  
Eszter Papp ◽  
Gábor Horváth

The moon illusion is a visual deception when people perceive the angular diameter of the Moon/Sun near the horizon larger than that of the one higher in the sky. Some theories have been proposed to explain this illusion, but not any is generally accepted. Although several psychophysical experiments have been performed to study different aspects of the moon illusion, their results have sometimes contradicted each other. Artists frequently display(ed) the Moon/Sun in their paintings. If the Moon/Sun appears near the horizon, its painted disc is often exaggeratedly large. How great is the magnitude of moon illusion of painters? How different are the size enlargements of depicted lunar/solar discs? To answer these questions, we measured these magnitudes on 100 paintings collected from the period of 1534–2017. In psychophysical experiments, we also investigated the moon illusion of 10 test persons who had to estimate the size of the lunar/solar disc on 100 paintings and 100 landscape photographs from which the Moon/Sun was retouched. Compared to the lunar/solar disc calculated from reference distances estimated by test persons in paintings, painters overestimated the Moon's size on average Q  = 2.1 ± 1.6 times, while the Sun was painted Q  = 1.8 ± 1.2 times larger than the real one, where Q  =  r painted / r real is the ratio of the radii of painted ( r painted ) and real ( r real ) Moons/Suns. In landscape photos, test persons overestimated the Moon's size Q  = 1.6 ± 0.4 times and the Sun was assumed Q  = 1.7 ± 0.5 times larger than in reality, where Q  =  r test / r real is the ratio of the radius r test estimated by the test persons and the real radius r real of Moons/Suns. The majority of the magnitude of moon illusion Q  = 1.6, 1.7, 1.8, 2.1, 2.8, 2.9 measured by us are larger than the Q -values 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 1.4, 1.5, 1.6, 1.8 obtained in previous psychophysical experiments due to methodological differences.


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