You are watching a TV news program when they switch to some scenes taken aboard the space shuttle which circles 500 miles above the Earth once every 95 minutes.  To allow the audience to appreciate the distances involved, the announcer tells you that the radius of the Earth is about 4000 miles and the distance from the Earth to the Moon is about 250,000 miles.  When an astronaut drops her pen it floats in front of her face.  You immediately wonder how the acceleration of the dropped pen compares to the acceleration of a pen that you might drop here on the surface of the Eart

Principles of Physics: A Calculus-Based Text
5th Edition
ISBN:9781133104261
Author:Raymond A. Serway, John W. Jewett
Publisher:Raymond A. Serway, John W. Jewett
Chapter11: Gravity, Planetary Orbits, And The Hydrogen Atom
Section: Chapter Questions
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You are watching a TV news program when they switch to some scenes taken aboard the space shuttle which circles 500 miles above the Earth once every 95 minutes.  To allow the audience to appreciate the distances involved, the announcer tells you that the radius of the Earth is about 4000 miles and the distance from the Earth to the Moon is about 250,000 miles.  When an astronaut drops her pen it floats in front of her face.  You immediately wonder how the acceleration of the dropped pen compares to the acceleration of a pen that you might drop here on the surface of the Earth.

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