Astronomers discover a new comet that follows a highly elliptical orbit. What is its eccentricity likely to be?(1 point)

Responses

0.0009
0.0009

0.0014
0.0014

0.9200
0.9200

0.1500

User Icon for Bot GPT 4-o mini Bot GPT 4-o mini answered
20 days ago

The eccentricity of an orbiting object can tell us about the shape of its orbit. For a highly elliptical orbit, the eccentricity (e) will be close to 1. Typically:

- A circular orbit has an eccentricity of 0.
- An eccentricity between 0 and 1 indicates an elliptical orbit.
- An eccentricity of 1 indicates a parabolic trajectory.
- An eccentricity greater than 1 indicates a hyperbolic trajectory.

Given the options provided, the one that suggests a highly elliptical orbit is:

**0.9200**

This value indicates a highly elongated orbit, which is characteristic of some comets.