Some Near Earth Asteroids may collide with Earth and therefore pose an environmental threat to Earth’s biosphere. One of the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission aims is to determine how effective an impact is in changing the velocity of an asteroid. This approach may be used to deflect potentially hazardous asteroids from paths that may strike Earth. In this problem you will examine the effects of an impact into an asteroid satellite similar to the situation examined by the DART mission. Consider a Near Earth Asteroid that has a mass of 6.00 × 1011 kg. It has a small moon on a circular orbit around it with semimajor axis of 1300 metres. i) Determine the circular orbital velocity of the moon orbiting about the asteroid before the collision. ii) The collision slows the moon down almost instantaneously, placing it on a new orbit that is eccentric and has a smaller semimajor axis that the initial circular orbit. After the collision, the moon is observed to orbit the asteroid with an orbital period of 11 hours. Determine the semimajor axis of the moon’s orbit after the collision
Some Near Earth Asteroids may collide with Earth and therefore pose an environmental threat to Earth’s biosphere. One of the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission aims is to determine how effective an impact is in changing the velocity of an asteroid. This approach may be used to deflect potentially hazardous asteroids from paths that may strike Earth. In this problem you will examine the effects of an impact into an asteroid satellite similar to the situation examined by the DART mission. Consider a Near Earth Asteroid that has a mass of 6.00 × 1011 kg. It has a small moon on a circular orbit around it with semimajor axis of 1300 metres. i) Determine the circular orbital velocity of the moon orbiting about the asteroid before the collision. ii) The collision slows the moon down almost instantaneously, placing it on a new orbit
that is eccentric and has a smaller semimajor axis that the initial circular orbit. After
the collision, the moon is observed to orbit the asteroid with an orbital period of 11
hours. Determine the semimajor axis of the moon’s orbit after the collision.
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