In: Advanced Math
According to Kepler's first law, a comet should have an elliptic, parabolic, or hyperbolic orbit (with gravitational attractions from the planets ignored). In suitable polar coordinates, the position left parenthesis r comma script theta right parenthesis of a comet satisfies an equation of the form r = betapluse(r*cosine script theta), where beta is a constant and e is the eccentricity of the orbit, with 0less than or equals less than1 for an ellipse, e equals1 for a parabola, and e greater than1 for a hyperbola. Suppose observations of a newly discovered comet provide the data below. Determine the type of orbit, and predict where the comet will be when script theta equals 4.1 left parenthesis radians right parenthesis. script theta 0.88 1.14 1.48 1.72 2.17 r 3.68 3.08 2.08 1.06 0.54 The comet has either a. hyperbolic b parabolic c elliptic orbit. When script thetaequals4.1 (radians), the comet will be at requals nothing.