An astronaut in her space suit has a total mass of 87.0 kg, including suit and oxygen tank.  Her tether line loses its attachment to her spacecraft while she’s on a spacewalk.  Initially at rest with respect to her spacecraft, she throws her 12.0 kg oxygen tank away from her spacecraft with a speed of 8.00 m/s to propel herself back toward it.                                                                                                                               a.What is her subsequent velocity after she throws her oxygen tank?                         b.Explain in terms of Newton’s laws of motion why this strategy works?

College Physics
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Chapter1: Units, Trigonometry. And Vectors
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  1. An astronaut in her space suit has a total mass of 87.0 kg, including suit and oxygen tank.  Her tether line loses its attachment to her spacecraft while she’s on a spacewalk.  Initially at rest with respect to her spacecraft, she throws her 12.0 kg oxygen tank away from her spacecraft with a speed of 8.00 m/s to propel herself back toward it.                                                                                                                               a.What is her subsequent velocity after she throws her oxygen tank?                         b.Explain in terms of Newton’s laws of motion why this strategy works?



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(a) Apply the conservation of momentum to determine the astronaut’s velocity.

Physics homework question answer, step 1, image 1

Here, ma, mt, v, va and vt represent the mass of an astronaut, the mass of the oxygen tank, the combined velocity of the astronaut and the tank, the velocity of the astronaut and the velocity of the oxygen tank, respectively.

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