Programming and Logic

Space Age Calculations Assignment

Create a program called SpaceAge.java.

All the input from the user should be from the command line (use the Scanner object). You only need to create one Scanner object to handle all the input.
Do not use JOptionPane.

Mars, the red planet, is visible in the night sky. As you gaze upon it, you might wonder how old you would be if you lived on Mars. Knowing that Mars is further away from the sun, you know that you'd be a much younger person there and you consider filling out an application for Mars One. (They are not accepting any more applications - darn!)

Saturn is also visible in the early evening sky. Saturn is far away, as you recall from the sentence that helped you remember the order of the planets in third grade: My Very Educated Mother Just Sent Us Nine Pizzas. (Pluto is not considered a planet any more - it is a dwarf planet - so no more pizza.) You would probably be a mere infant on Saturn. Venus is also visible in the very early evening sky. But you would be older there, and it is very hot, so that doesn't seem like a good option.

Now, we realize that planetary age is a relative measurement. If you were able to somehow be born on Neptune, you'd never live to be a Neptunian year. This doesn't mean that you'd be crawling around and in diapers your entire life, it simply means that you wouldn't live (if you were a regular human) to see Neptune take an entire trip around the sun.

Create a program that asks the user to enter their age. Then you will calculate and print the user's age on the other 8 (we'll include Pluto) planets. Each of the calculations should be enclosed in a method. Besides the main method, you will have eight methods, one per planet. Since you are obtaining the user's age in the main method, you will send that numeric value to all eight methods. Each method will use that value to calculate the user's age on that particular planet and will print it to standard output. I will not restrict your naming of the methods, but you should name them based on their function. For example, mercuryAge() or printMercuryAge() would be good names.

So you don't have to look them up (and because I always have my astronomy books at my fingertips), I have included the orbital period for all the planets below.

Planet Orbital Period
Mercury 88 days
Venus 224.7 days
Earth 365.25 days
Mars 687 days
Jupiter 11.86 years
Saturn 29.46 years
Uranus 84 years
Neptune 164.8 years
Pluto 248 years

Notes:
- Notice that some of the units are days and some of the units are years. You might have to convert years to days in some cases.
- Your output should be a decimal number to two places after the decimal point.
- Don't worry if your output is not exactly the same as mine, but make sure it is close.