IB Mathematics HL

Type II Task
Orbital radii of planets and moons of Jupiter

Colegio Colombo Británico

School Number: 000033

Juliana Peña Ocampo

Candidate Number: 000033-049

May 2008
 Juliana Peña Ocampo
000033-049

Contents

Questions ..........................................................................................................................................3

Answers.............................................................................................................................................4

Answer 1.a ................................................................................................................................................ 4

Answer 1.b ................................................................................................................................................ 5

Answer 2.a ................................................................................................................................................ 6

Answer 2.b ................................................................................................................................................ 7

Answer 2.c................................................................................................................................................. 8

Answer 3 ................................................................................................................................................. 10

Bibliography .................................................................................................................................... 13

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Questions

(Extracted from the IB Mathematics HL Internal Assessment Teacher Support Material)

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Answers

Answer 1.a
In order to find the relationship between the position and the orbital radius, the data was graphed with
Microsoft Excel and three types of best fit – quadratic, cubic and exponential – were used to find the
function relating these two variables. The result is shown in Graph 1.

Graph 1: Orbital radii of Planets

8000

7000
Orbital radius / millions of km

6000

5000

4000 Quadratic
3000
Cubic
2000
Exponential
1000

-1000 0 2 4 6 8 10 12
Position from Sun

From this, it is possible to conclude that the exponential regression is the appropriate function relation
the position with the orbital radius because it closely approaches all points. Additionally, unlike the
quadratic and cubic functions, the exponential function is always growing (its rate of growth is positive
always), whilst the other functions have changes in their rate of growth – sometimes they are
increasing, sometimes they are decreasing. This is particularly notable in the quadratic function, but also
occurs in the cubic one.

Using Excel, the formula for the exponential function was found to be

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Answer 1.b
The orbital radius of an asteroid in position 5 can be calculated by replacing by 5 in [1].

Asteroids in the main asteroid belt are located 2 to 4 AU (approximately 300 to 600 million km) from the
Sun1. is almost in the middle of this range, which shows that the function [1] does have applicability
and will very possibly find asteroids.

Regarding specifically the dwarf planet Ceres, which lies in the asteroid belt, its orbital radius was
discovered by Carl Friedrich Gauss by using a different method than this one, by measuring its orbital
period. Its orbital radius was found to be 2.7 AU, approximately 403 million km.2 This model, therefore,
is not able to predict the position of Ceres accurately.

1
(1)
2
(2)

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Answer 2.a
Again, Excel was used to find the relationship between the position of the moons and their orbital radii,
with three regression types, quadratic, cubic and exponential. The results are in Graph 2.

Graph 2: Orbital radii of moons of Jupiter

7000

6000
Orbital radius / thousands of km

5000

4000
Quadratic
3000
Cubic
2000 Exponential

1000

0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12
Order from Jupiter

It is quite obvious that the exponential function is the best fit. Although all lines fit the four points, only
the exponential function gives an accurate trend line of greater or lesser positions than the data
graphed.

This function is

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Answer 2.b
Using [3], was replaced by the values 3, 4, 9 and 10 to predict the orbital radius of the moons in these
positions. The results are in the table bellow.

x y
3 153.29
4 251.47
9 2987.87
10 4901.59

The actual scientific data3 is show in the table below.

Name Order from Orbital radius /

Jupiter thousands of km
Amalthea 3 181
Thebe 4 212
S/2000 9 7435
Leda 10 11094

From this information, the formula seems to prove relatively accurate for moons 3 and 4, with only
about 30 thousand km in difference from the actual results, but very inaccurate for moons 9 and 10,
with a margin of error in the range of millions of km. This could be due to the very small sizes of the
farther moons (4 km radius for S/2000 and 8 km radius for Leda4), which would make the gravitational
attraction between them and Jupiter lesser and allowed them to drift further away.

This model is therefore applicable only moons of Jupiter as far as Callisto.

3
(3)
4
(3)

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Answer 2.c
The model for predicting orbital radii of planets is very accurate up to Saturn. From Uranus onwards, it is
somewhat less accurate. Also, from Graph 1, it can be seen that the quadratic and cubic models are
actually more accurate for Uranus, Neptune and Pluto than the exponential model.

A reason for this inaccuracy could be due to Pluto's status as a planet. Pluto is no longer considered a
planet, but rather a dwarf planet. Not considering Pluto as part of this data actually transforms the
function into a slightly more accurate one, as seen in graphs 3 and 4.

Graph 3: Orbital radii of Planets (with Pluto)

8000
Orbital radius / millions of km

7000
6000
5000
4000
3000
Exponential
2000
y = 32.473e0.5341x
1000
0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12
Position from Sun

Graph 4: Orbital radii of Planets (without Pluto)

8000
Orbital radius / millions of km

7000
6000
5000
4000
3000
Exponential
2000
y = 31.211e0.5454x
1000
0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12
Position from Sun

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As for the model for moons of Jupiter, all Galilean moons accurately fit the model, as seen in graph 2.
Since there were only four data points, a highly accurate model was easily found to predict the orbital
radius of a Galilean moon.

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Answer 3
Scaled model for inner planets

Planet Order from Sun Scaled orbital radius

Mercury 1 1.0000
Venus 2 1.8687
Earth 3 2.5838
Mars 4 3.9361

The scaling factor for the inner planets was the orbital radius of Mercury, 57.9 million km, in order for
the scaled orbital radius of Mercury to be equal to 1. Graphing and applying exponential regression
yields graph 5.

Graph 5: Scaled orbital radius of the inner

planets
18
16
Scaled orbital radius

y = 0.689e0.4435x
14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Order from Sun

The function for this relationship is

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Scaled model for Galilean moons

Moon Order from Jupiter Scaled orbital radius

Io 5 1.0000
Europa 6 1.5179
Ganymede 7 2.4208
Callisto 8 4.2602

The scaling factor for the Galilean moons was the orbital radius of Io, 442 thousand km, in order for the
scaled orbital radius of Io to be equal to 1. Once again, these results were graphed and an exponential
regression was used, as shown in graph 6.

Graph 6: Scaled orbital radius of the Galilean

moons
12
10 y = 0.087e0.4815x
Scaled orbital radius

8
6
4
2
0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12
Order from Jupiter

The function for this relationship is

However, it is not appropriate to compare the two models, for the scaled orbital radii of inner planets
and Galilean moons, because the Galilean moons start at position 5. Taking this into account, graph 6
was made again, but this time having Io at position 1, Europa at position 2, and so on. This is show in
graph 7.

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Graph 7: Scaled orbital radius of the Galilean

moons (with Io starting at position 1)
12

10 y = 0.5969e0.4815x
Scaled orbital radius

0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Order from Jupiter

The function for this relationship is

And so we have two comparable functions, [4] and [6], for the orbital radii of the inner planets and the
Galilean moons:

Planets Galilean moons

It is quite interesting how similar these two functions are. First of all, they are both exponential
functions in the form . The values of the constants and are also very similar. The difference
between the constants of each model is less than 0.1, and the difference between the constants of
each model is less than . This shows the close similarity these two models have, and is a clear
example of how two similar physical phenomena, the orbits of planets and the orbits of the moons of
Jupiter, are interrelated by mathematical models.

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Bibliography

1. Arnett, Bill. Asteroids. Nine Planets. [Online] February 26, 2006. [Cited: February 13, 2008.]
http://www.nineplanets.org/asteroids.html.

2. 1 Ceres. JPL Small-Body Database Browser. [Online] August 2003. [Cited: February 13, 2008.]
http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi?sstr=Ceres;orb=1;cov=0;log=0#elem.

3. Hamilton, Calvin J. Jupiter. Views of the Solar System. [Online] March 6, 2008. [Cited: March 10,
2008.] http://www.solarviews.com/eng/jupiter.htm.

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