Honors Program
Honors in Physics and Astronomy
Date of Award
5-2020
Thesis Professor(s)
Gary Henson
Thesis Professor Department
Physics and Astronomy
Thesis Reader(s)
Mark Giroux
Abstract
Astronomers have been observing the night sky for many centuries to establish a better understanding for our universe and solar system. As part of their observations, astronomers characterize celestial bodies by fundamental properties such as mass, motion, and composition in order to provide further insight about the objects in question. As technology and science have evolved, the methods for measuring these properties have become more precise and accurate. One such methodology is known as spectroscopy, and it is a significant tool for observational astronomy. In this paper, we shall describe how we used astronomical spectroscopy to determine orbital and rotational velocities for various objects in our solar system. This method was implemented specifically using the facilities of the Harry D. Powell Observatory on the campus of East Tennessee State University.
Publisher
East Tennessee State University
Document Type
Honors Thesis - Open Access
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Jones, Mark, "Determining the Rotational and Orbital Velocities of Objects in the Solar System" (2020). Undergraduate Honors Theses. Paper 585. https://dc.etsu.edu/honors/585
Copyright
Copyright by the authors.