Suppose you are an intrepid interplanetary explorer and you've landed on the remote planet, Gorzag. Your task is to determine the free-fall acceleration on the surface of Gorzag, which has no atmosphere. All you have is a space rock, a stop watch, and a laser range finder (a tool to measure distance). You find a nearby cliff and make the following measurements: the height of the cliff is 55m, and when you drop the rock off the cliff it takes 40s for the rock to hit the ground below. Show your work.
Suppose you are an intrepid interplanetary explorer and you've landed on the remote planet, Gorzag. Your task is to determine the free-fall acceleration on the surface of Gorzag, which has no atmosphere. All you have is a space rock, a stop watch, and a laser range finder (a tool to measure distance). You find a nearby cliff and make the following measurements: the height of the cliff is 55m, and when you drop the rock off the cliff it takes 40s for the rock to hit the ground below. Show your work.
Given data:
Distance s = 55 m
Time t= 40 s
Initial velocity of Rock u = 0 m/s
Concept and formula:
When Rock is in a free fall, we can use the kinematic equation
to calculate the acceleration of the planet Gorzag.
here, u is initial velocity, a is the acceleration due to gravity, and s is distance.
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