Question

Draw picture and explain your reasoning carefully to get max grade.

While scouting in your rocket ship you discover a spherical asteroid of mass 3ooo kg and radius 15 meters rotating with period of 30 seconds. You fire a 1kg probe at the center of mass with a velocity of 400 m/s. When the probe impacts the asteroid the asteroid instantaneously shrinks down to a radius of 2m yet retains the same mass (including your now very confused probe).

a) What is the new period of the asteroid.

b) What is ? before the probe hit and after the probe hit?

c) What is the Rotational kinetic energy of the asteroid before and after the impact.

d) Can you use conservation of Energy in this scenario why or why not?

Answer 1