UST Physics 104 - Moons of Jupiter

Instructor’s Notes for Weighing Jupiter

“Weighing Jupiter” is an observational astronomy lab that allows students to determine the mass of Jupiter using real data that they request from a remote robotic telescope. The exercise is intended to mimic the course of a scientific experiment in which the scientist investigates a question, designs a data acquisition plan, acquires data, and analyzes that data. Overly technical details of the process that mask pedagogical goals are hidden f rom students and instructors leaving pedagogically important planning and analysis tasks to the students.

The lab is designed to take place over two class periods. In period one, students investigate the connection between the Jovian system and Newton’s version Kepler’s Third Law and develop an observing plan. In period two, they extract data from their images, create plots of the orbital curves, measure the critical orbital parameters, and finally calculate Jupiter’s mass.

The lab write-up is contained in four documents, two for each period. The documents titled Instructions guide the students through the exercises. The documents titled “Questions,” which the students turn in at the end of the period, contain data tables and short answer questions. We have also included answer keys for Questions packets that contain additional instructor’s notes and guidance regarding our intended answers to the questions.

In our experience, the lab runs best when it is interspersed with instructor mediated class discussions. Many of the bullet points in the Instructions Packets offer natural places to break for large group discussions as time permits. We allow each group to share their answers with the class at several points which generally generates healthy inter-group debate.

The MS Word version of the Instruction and Question packets are included on the website. Feel free to modify the materials to suit your needs. If you have any questions, comments, or concerns, please feel free to contact me at: