I need help to determine the force of attraction between the Sun and any planet listed in Appendix 2?

Question

http://bcs.whfreeman.com/aol_v3/content/media/app2.gif

In the tablefrom the link I get the mass for different planets, but how do I find out the distance between the planets?

Answer 1

Apply F = G m1m2/r^2

The distances:

http://www.nineplanets.org/

or

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_syste...

and click on a planet like Mars

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars

Answer 2

To determine the force of attraction between to objects (the Sun and a planet for example) use the following formula.

                                    F=G(m1+m2)/d^2

Where G is the gravitational constant of the universe (a figure that for all practical purposes is 1)

m1 and m2 is the masses of the two objects in question (use metric units to keep the math simple)

Divide all that by the distance between the two objects squared (once again use metric units).

Your chart doesn't give the mass of the Sun, and it doesn't give the distance between the Sun and the respective planets. So with the available data, you cannot solve the problem.

The link below can provide you with the additional data you need. Good luck.