O ESTUDO DE PRECESSÃO DA ÓRBITA DE MERCÚRIO NO ENSINO MÉDIO

Authors

  • Ricardo Fagundes Freitas Cunha Colégio Pedro II, Campus Realengo II, Rio de Janeiro
  • Alexandre Carlos Tort Instituto de Física, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.26512/rpf.v1i2.7069

Keywords:

Physics education;, Newtonian gravitation;, Precession of orbits;, Precession of Mercury;, Technology in physics education

Abstract

Newton‘s law of universal gravitation underpins our understanding of the dynamics of the Solar System and under certain conditions, of a good portion of the observable universe. In high school, the orbits of the planets are announced as ellipticals, with the Sun occupying one of the foci. This is true if we consider the gravitational interaction between Sun and planet only. But a planet does not suffer the gravitational force exerted by the Sun only, but also by the gravitational forces exerced by others planets. Besides that other effects must be considered such as the oblaticity of the Sun and the effects predicited by relativist version of Newton‘s law of universal gravitational. The final result is that the planetary orbits are not closed, that is: the orbits precess. Is it possible to introduce this topic in high school? The authors believe that the answer is affirmative and the phenomenon of precession of orbits can be studied using modern softwares, many of them free and easy to learn. In this paper we will discuss the phenomenon of precession and, in particular, the relativistic effect on the precession of Mercury and we suggest its implementation through the Modellus educational software.

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Author Biography

Ricardo Fagundes Freitas Cunha, Colégio Pedro II, Campus Realengo II, Rio de Janeiro

Aluno de doutorado do Programa de Pós Graduação em Ciência, Tecnologia e Educação do Centro Federal de Educação Tecnológica Celso Suckow da Fonseca, Unidade Maracanã, RJ, Brasil. E-mail: 

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Published

2017-12-21

How to Cite

CUNHA, Ricardo Fagundes Freitas; TORT, Alexandre Carlos. O ESTUDO DE PRECESSÃO DA ÓRBITA DE MERCÚRIO NO ENSINO MÉDIO. Journal of the Physics Teacher, [S. l.], v. 1, n. 2, p. 13–24, 2017. DOI: 10.26512/rpf.v1i2.7069. Disponível em: https://periodicos.unb.br/index.php/rpf/article/view/7069. Acesso em: 12 dec. 2025.

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