You\'re a space explorer traveling towards an interesting planet. The mass of yo

Question

You're a space explorer traveling towards an interesting planet. The mass of your rocket, m = 20, 000 kg, and we don't know the mass of this newly-discovered purplish planet, but it's much larger than the mass of your rocket. When you're some distance away, you are speeding directly towards the planet at about 2km/s. About 2.8 hours later (that's about 10, 000 s), you're closer to the planet, and you're now approaching the planet at 10km/s. Can you say what your acceleration is, towards the planet, when you're distance d away? At that point (when you're moving at 10m/s toward the planed), you decide you want to orbit the planet and take pictures first and decide where to land. When you fire your rocket, it can exert a maximum force on the rocket of about 16,000 N. Is it possible for you to get into orbit around the planet? Why or why not?

Explanation / Answer

Acceleration of your planet is (change in velocity with time)= (vf-vi)/t . [we know, 1km=1000m] accleration = {(10-2) * 103}/104=0.8 m/s2 we can say acceleration due to gravity is 0.8 m/s2 . mass of the rocket =20,000 kg gravitational force by the new planet on the rocket is = Mass * acceleration. =20,000* 0.8= 16,000 N As your rocket can exert 16,000 N force on rocket which is equal to force on your rocket by planet due to gravity, you can orbit the planet and take pictures

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