Our solar system, to scale. Eight planets, count 'em--four terrestrial ("Earth-like"), close to the sun; four jovian ("Jupiter-like"), much further away from the sun. If you think there should be nine planets, then I'm not sure which solar system you live in...
What about extrasolar planets, orbiting other stars? More and more of them are being discovered all the time--what generalizations can be made about these planets, compared to our solar system, and as a whole? (Video link: "Kepler Orrery (large & small systems).") 
One way to organize data is with a histogram, or "bar chart," where each type of category is tallied up, and their numbers are shown as different heights.
Another way to organize data is with a scatter plot, or "correlation diagram," where one characteristic is plotted versus another characteristic along horizontal and vertical axes. 
So taking all the extrasolar planets from the data set, here shown superimposed on the "same" solar system... (Video link: "Kepler Exoplanet Candidates.") 
...and plotting two properties versus each other on scatter graph, may show the resulting data points seeming to form a pattern, and thus indicating a correlation...
...or may instead seem randomly spread out, and in this case indicating no correlation between the two properties.So these two types of graphs, bar charts and scatter plots, are very powerful and elegant ways to organize data and to find interesting results that may suggest underlying causes and effects among extrasolar planet properties.
Your personal experience with these tools may vary.
2 comments:
Astronomy 210L, Spring Semester 2011
Cuesta College, San Luis Obispo, CA
Online post-lab assignment 8
Discuss the most interesting aspect of this lab, and explain why this was personally interesting for you.
The following are a sampling of the student responses to this question, verbatim and unedited.
"Finding out how many planets we have discovered and all the information we have on them."
"I had heard about histograms before, but I hadn't actually ever done one before, so it was interesting to find out how to do them."
"Getting an idea how how many planets we are able to locate, despite how incredibly far away they are. I think its interesting to see how far technology has come, and even more interesting to see how it will progress into the future."
"Discovering multiple extrasolar planets"
"the relationships planets have between size and orbit"
"It was neat to the the correlation between distance and period."
"orbital periods of planets."
"learning the different masses of the planets in our solar system"
"seeing the correlations"
"Seeing the correlation different variables in planets."
"I like learning that there are lots of planets even within planets that we can detect. Also, they are discovering new planets are a very fast rate."
"It was interesting to see the correlative features of planets, solar and extrasolar.
finding the distances for different planets"
"getting to see a histogram of the results i think its better for me as a visual learner
discovering the mass amounts of planets"
"i found it interesting that there is around 500 known exoplanets"
"finding the different orbits of the planets."
"Coming up with the research question at the end was the most interesting this week."
"I loved the research question that we chose"
"It was actually all pretty interesting. I liked learning about the different orbits"
"seeing what factors were linked and which weren't."
"it was interesting, but not surprising, to look at the correlation between the orbital distance and period."
"I thought the website was pretty amazing and what calculations it knew."
"The question at the end was the most interesting! Its one thing to answer a question, its a lot harder and more interesting to create it."
"Learning what a scatter plot graph is, and how to use one, and deduce date from it."
"I liked working with orbital distances and how they vary with each planet."
"i like planets and its interesting to see how we view distant ones."
"i liked the entire lab"
"The most interesting part of this lab for me was the graphing we had to. I actually understood it for once."
"The most interesting aspect of the lab was finding out the different planets orbital distance from earth."
"I thought it was cool using graphs"
"we got to see that other planets share traits with Earth and other planets from our solar system"
"The graphs were interesting. We could make our own graphs up."
"The graphs and how fast they popped up."
"The most interestig part was seeing how certain things correlated with each other"
"it was interesting to look at the correlation of orbits to distance, even though its a simple enough concept"
"The most interesting aspect was answering our research question because I got to learn how to use a new website."
"I liked hearing about all the different exosolar planets out there... I didn't know there was so many!"
Astronomy 210L, Spring Semester 2011
Cuesta College, San Luis Obispo, CA
Online post-lab assignment 8
Discuss the most confusing aspect of this lab, and explain why this was personally confusing for you.
The following are a sampling of the student responses to this question, verbatim and unedited.
"Discovering planets with similar orbital distances and period."
"There wasn't anything particularly confusing, but the graphing was a bit tedious.
working with difficult lab partners. If working in groups is necessary to make the grade, I am confused as to why some dont pull their weight, and in certain cases even make things more difficult."
"Sraight face clear!"
"Mearh and Mjupiter because I haven't learned that yet"
"trying to come up with a question"
"It was all pretty straight forward. The graphs could be tricky to some people but it was not a problem for me."
"configuring a research question"
"This lab was not confusing, I enjoyed it."
"Nothing was too confusing in this lab"
"sometimes reading the graphs was confusing."
"graphs :("
"plotting the graphs was a little confusing."
"Converting jupiter to earth mass"
"Figuring out the graphs in contrast with the information. Its always been hard for me."
"Some of the instructions were hard to understand. For example, the first graph wasn't too clear on what data we were supposed to use, and how to graph it was also a bit foggy."
"I think aligning the graphs was the most confusing, or at least challenging part of the lab. It was hard to determine where each little dot went on the graph."
"The most confusing part was finding a research question."
"I was a little confused which part of the graphs with some questions"
"Figuring out what the graphs called for at first"
"Some of the statistics we're pretty confusing"
"The whole lab was a consfusing.I didn't understand it."
"dots"
"Finding a research question that works."
"the graphing, it can be a pain sometimes"
"The most confusing aspect of this lab was figuring out how to do some of the graphs."
"The Research Question wasn't very fun."
"The coming with the research lab from using the website was confusing"
"The most confusing part was reading all the graphs."
"I understood this whole lab, it was awesome."
"Trying to understand all the charts"
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