Chapter 12, Problem 79GP

Comet Wild 2 In 2004, a NASA spacecraft named Stardust flew within 147 miles of Comet Wild 2 (pronounced “Vilt 2”), zooming by it at 6200 m/s, about six times the speed of a rifle bullet. Photos taken by Stardust show that the comet is roughly spherical, as shown in Figure 12, with a radius of 2.7 km. It has also been determined that the acceleration due to gravity on the surface of Wild 2 is 0.00010g. What is the minimum speed needed for an object to escape from the surface of Wild 2?

Figure 12-40 Comet Wild 2 and some of its surface features, including the Walker basin, the site of unusual jets of outward-flowing dust and rocks. (Problem 79)