Ellipse

High school (ages 12+)
Mathematics & Numbers

Name:

Date:

Step 1 · Read the article

Open the article and read it at the level above. Then answer the questions below in your own words.

https://smallwhale.org/articles/ellipse

Write what each word means, using the article.

Do not copy the article. Write two things you learned, the way you would explain them to a friend.

Answers below are taken from the article’s stored facts, so they match what the student read.

1. What is an ellipse?An ellipse is a stretched-out circle. It is the set of all points where the sum of the distances to two fixed points, called foci, is the same constant.
2. Why do planets travel in ellipses?Kepler discovered that planets orbit the Sun in elliptical paths, with the Sun at one focus. This was later explained by Newton’s gravity.

Semi-major Axis (a): Half the length of the longest diameter of an ellipse, extending from the center to the ellipse's edge.
Semi-minor Axis (b): Half the length of the shortest diameter of an ellipse, perpendicular to the major axis.
Eccentricity (e): A measure of how much an ellipse deviates from being circular, ranging from 0 (circle) to nearly 1 (highly elongated ellipse).