Suppose that a comet that was seen in 545 A.D. by Chinese astronomers was spotted again in year 1937. Assume the time between observations is the period of the comet and take its eccentricity as 0.11. What are (a) the semimajor axis of the comet's orbit and (b) its greatest distance from the Sun in terms of the mean orbital radius Rp of Pluto?
I solved the first part by using Kepler's Law of periods and for a semimajor axis which was equal to the radius of the equation.
a=1.89*10^13m
I'm not sure how to solve for Rp, pretty sure it has to deal with eccentricities, but I don't know how to find them.
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Scratch that, my numbers are 574 to 1994 and the eccentricity is suppose to be .9932 not .11.
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