An asteroid travels around the Sun in an elliptical orbit with perihelion distance…

PHYSICS · Multi-part · A Level · Physics · Fields and their consequences · Fields and their consequences

Problem

An asteroid travels around the Sun in an elliptical orbit with perihelion distance

0.80\,\text{AU}

and eccentricity

0.40

. (a) Find its aphelion distance. (b) Determine the semi-major axis of the orbit. (c) Using the Earth’s orbital period of

1\,\text{year}

, calculate the orbital period of the asteroid.