Rick is an Aerospace Engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsions Laboratory (JPL), and is designing the next mission to Pluto called “New Horizons 2: The Sequel". This time Rick plans to study Pluto's largest moon Charon. Charon has a mass of 1.586 ×10²1 kg and a mean radius of 606 km, and might have a nitrogenous atmosphere (N2) just like Pluto. If, for a massive object to have an atmosphere its escape speed must be 12 times greater than the root-mean- square (rms) velocity of the gas (otherwise the gas will slowly leak away over time), what is the maximum temperature that Charon can have and still have a nitrogenous atmosphere? [Charon has a temperature of -281 °C = 55 K, day or night.]
Gravitational force
In nature, every object is attracted by every other object. This phenomenon is called gravity. The force associated with gravity is called gravitational force. The gravitational force is the weakest force that exists in nature. The gravitational force is always attractive.
Acceleration Due to Gravity
In fundamental physics, gravity or gravitational force is the universal attractive force acting between all the matters that exist or exhibit. It is the weakest known force. Therefore no internal changes in an object occurs due to this force. On the other hand, it has control over the trajectories of bodies in the solar system and in the universe due to its vast scope and universal action. The free fall of objects on Earth and the motions of celestial bodies, according to Newton, are both determined by the same force. It was Newton who put forward that the moon is held by a strong attractive force exerted by the Earth which makes it revolve in a straight line. He was sure that this force is similar to the downward force which Earth exerts on all the objects on it.
![Rick is an Aerospace Engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsions Laboratory (JPL), and is designing
the next mission to Pluto called “New Horizons 2: The Sequel". This time Rick plans to
study Pluto's largest moon Charon. Charon has a mass of 1.586 ×1021 kg and a mean radius
of 606 km, and might have a nitrogenous atmosphere (N2) just like Pluto. If, for a massive
object to have an atmosphere its escape speed must be 12 times greater than the root-mean-
square (rms) velocity of the gas (otherwise the gas will slowly leak away over time), what is
the maximum temperature that Charon can have and still have a nitrogenous atmosphere?
[Charon has a temperature of -281 °C = 55 K, day or night.]](/v2/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcontent.bartleby.com%2Fqna-images%2Fquestion%2F3ae856e8-b44a-47be-aaf0-1bb5746e1c2c%2Fcefc1e7b-f779-481d-aec0-e11bc22e3b2d%2Ffgtbgpv_processed.png&w=3840&q=75)
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