The eccentricity is 1/2, confirming that the conic section is an ellipse.
How to find eccentricity and conic?
The given equation is in polar form for a conic section:
![\[ r = (a)/(1 - e \cdot \cos(\theta)) \]](https://img.qammunity.org/2024/formulas/mathematics/high-school/69ajf0k5hx7l14w2w71jjjvrncliye1pyn.png)
Comparing this with the given equation
, identify the corresponding parameters:
a = 6
![\[ e = (1)/(2) \]](https://img.qammunity.org/2024/formulas/mathematics/high-school/smwp9qu598d4ou9wx8jt29ouec87a5d47p.png)
The eccentricity (e) is given by the ratio of the distance from the focus to the directrix to the distance from the origin to the directrix. In this case,
, which is less than 1, indicating an ellipse.
So, the conic section represented by the equation
is an ellipse with an eccentricity of
.