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Astronomy and Cosmology
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Exploring the History of Calculating Solar System Body SGPs
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[QUOTE="Drakkith, post: 6798357, member: 272035"] It's likely that scientists first determined the gravitational constant and then used that to determine the mass of the Sun, Moon, and planets. From those two values you can get the SGP by multiplying them together. As far as I am aware, the first semi-accurate measurement to determine the gravitational constant (actually the density of the Earth, from which you can get the constant) was the [URL='https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schiehallion_experiment']Schiehallion experiment[/URL] of 1774. This found the density of the Earth to be about 4500 kg/m[SUP]3[/SUP], about 20% off from the modern value of 5515 kg/m[SUP]3[/SUP]. Jupiter's mass was calculated at various times afterward. Here is George Biddell Airy's article from 1833 in the [URL='https://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/full/seri/MmRAS/0006//0000083.000.html']Memoirs of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 6, p.83[/URL] in which he determines the mass of Jupiter by observing the orbit of its 4th satellite. He seems somewhat aghast that various measurements had differed widely up to that point and that no one had lately tried to reconcile them properly. I'm not actually certain what value he obtained, as he states it in a way I've never seen before. Something about a logarithm of the mass. [/QUOTE]
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Exploring the History of Calculating Solar System Body SGPs
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