Precession of the perihelion of Mercury's orbit

American Journal of Physics

Volumn 73, Issue 8, 2005, Pages 730-734

  Stewart, M G ^a  

^a WAYNE STATE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 25144514492     PISSN: 00029505     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1119/1.1949625     Document Type: Article

References (19)

1. Eric Doolittle, "The secular variations of the elements of the orbits of the four inner planets computed for the epoch 1850.0 G.M.T.," Trans. Am. Phil. Soc. 22, 37-189 (1912), and references therein.
2. Herbert Goldstein, Charles Poole, and John Safko, Classical Mechanics (Addison-Wesley, San Francisco, CA, 2002), 3rd ed., p. 538.
3. th éd., pp. 318-321.
4. Michael P. Price and William F. Rush, "Nonrelativistic contribution to Mercury's perihelion precession," Am. J. Phys. 47, 531-534 (1979).
5. B. Davies, "Elementary theory of perihelion precession," Am. J. Phys. 51, 909-911 (1983).
6. Reference 2, pp. 102-106. For more information about the history of the Laplace-Runge-Lenz vector, see Herbert Goldstein, Am. J. Phys. 43, 737-738 (1975);
7. Herbert Goldstein, Am. J. Phys. 44, 1123-1124 (1976).
8. See EPAPS Document No. E-AJPIAS-73-011508 for details of the calculations. A direct link to this document may be found in the online article's HTML reference section. The document may also be reached via the EPAPS homepage 〈http://www.aip.org/pubservs/epaps.html〉 or from ftp.aip.org in the directory/epaps. See the EPAPS homepage for more information.
9. Explanatory Supplement to the Astronomical Almanac edited by P. Kenneth Seidelmann (University Science Books, Mill Valley, CA, 1992), p. 697, Table 15.2.20.
10. See Ref. 8, p. 316, Table 5.8.1.
11. The sidereal period of Mercury is 0.24084445 years (Ref. 8, p. 704, Table 15.6), which gives a conversion factor from radians per revolution to seconds of arc per century of 8.564 233 × 107.
12. 00.
13. When measured from the vernal equinox of earth's orbit along the ecliptic to the ascending node, Ω is called the longitude of the ascending node.
14. When measured from the ecliptic to the perihelion, Ω is called the argument of the perihelion. The longitude of the perihelion, which is defined as ω̄=Ω+ω is usually given in astronomical tables instead of ω.
15. Reference 2, pp. 150-154.
16. Reference 1, p. 41.
17. The normal force, Fη gives rise to changes in i and Ω.
18. Reference 2, p. 153. Their (φ θ, ψ correspond to the angles (Ω, i, w) used here.
19. Reference 3, p. 318.