Problem 12.5: Could this animation of a planetary orbit depict a physical situation?


Please wait for the animation to completely load.

The animation purports to model a solar system. However, the planet shown is not in a circular or an elliptical orbit (position is given in 104 km and time is given in years). Restart.

  1. Could this represent a physical situation?
  2. Why or why not?

When you get a good-looking graph, right-click on it to clone the graph and resize it for a better view.