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200 years ago, the 1. January 1801, the Italian astronomer
Giuseppe Piazzi (1746-1826) discovered Ceres, the first and largest asteroid.
Ceres is a rock of 914 km diameter. Roughly speaking, what Gauss was is to describe
the Keplerian orbit of Ceres with a few parameters. From the observations, the parameters
can then be solved via a linear system of equations similar than in one of the homework
problems, where you have to fit a cubic curve from 4 observations.
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| By the way: Gauss, who predicted the position of Ceres from observations was essentially doing what you did when solving problem 30. He parameterized the Keplerian orbit of Ceres with some parameters and new the position at certain times. This led to a linear system of equations. |
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Apropos homework for monday: in section 1.3: Problems 4,14,26*,34,48,50 Office hours: reminder: Mo, We 14-15, starting next monday. |
Diameter Mass Rotation Orbital Spectral Semimajor Orbital Orbital
(km) 1015 kg Period Period Class Axis Eccentricity Inclination
-------- ------- -------- ------- -------- --------- ------------ -----------
960 x 932 870,000 9.075 hrs 4.60 yrs C 2.767 AU 0.0789 10.58 deg
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