What is the average speed of a satellite given the following information.
1) The earth's radius = 6000 km
2) The satellite is 900 km from the earth's surface
3) The satellite's orbital period: 2 hours
4) Circumference = 2pr (p = 3.14)
A)
6 km/s
B)
10 km/s
C)
5 km/s
D)
8 km/s
r earth = 6,000 km
d satellite from earth = 900.
r satellite's orbit = 6900 km
2*pi*r = circumference = distance traveled around earth.
distance/2 = speed satellite in km/hr
d/hr x (1 hr/60 m) x (1 min/60 s) = ? km/s
To find the average speed of a satellite, we can use the formula:
Average Speed = Total Distance Traveled / Total Time Taken
To calculate the total distance traveled by the satellite, we need to find the circumference of the satellite's orbit. The circumference of a circle is given by the formula 2πr, where r is the radius. In this case, since the satellite is 900 km from the Earth's surface, we need to add this distance to the Earth's radius to get the orbital radius.
So, the orbital radius = Earth's radius + satellite's distance from the Earth's surface = 6000 km + 900 km = 6900 km.
The circumference of the satellite's orbit is then given by 2π * orbital radius = 2 * 3.14 * 6900 km.
Next, we need to calculate the total time taken by the satellite for one complete orbit, which is given as 2 hours.
Finally, we can substitute the values into the average speed formula:
Average Speed = Total Distance Traveled / Total Time Taken
Average Speed = Circumference / Orbital Period
Average Speed = (2 * 3.14 * 6900) km / 2 hours.
By calculating the expression above, we find that the average speed of the satellite is approximately 21950 km/h.
However, the answer options are in km/s, so we need to convert km/h to km/s. We can do this by dividing the average speed by 3600 (since there are 3600 seconds in an hour).
Average Speed = 21950 km/h / 3600 s/h.
By calculating the expression above, we find that the average speed of the satellite is approximately 6.1 km/s.
Therefore, the closest answer option to the calculated average speed is option A) 6 km/s.