🚀 go-pugleaf

Regarding finding the mass of Mars,
This makes an excellent Science Fair project, ,and I have had students
do so in the past, only I had them use Jupiter as the moons around Mars
are difficult to see.  So if you have a student with a good telescope,
have them chart the course of the 4 moons around Jupiter over a period
of a few days.  They may even want to make to chartings a night, because
some of the moons move rather quickly.  Although taking photographs
makes the job easier, I've just had my students use the old sketchpad
method.  Finding the period is rather easy, if they can keep track
of the moons.
However, finding the radious of the orbit can be rather difficult.  YOu
could just have them look up the radious.  But to find the radius, using
photographs, find the arcwidth of Jupiter and compare that to the
arcwidth of the maximum radius of the orbit.  USing information such
as the distance to Jupiter, you can then calculate the radius of the orbit.


Gary Garber
Germantown Friends School
Philly, City of Brotherly Love   :)