Question

You read in the newspaper that rocks from Mars have been found on Earth. Your friend says that the rocks were shot off Mars by the large volcanoes there. You are skeptical so you decide to calculate the magnitude of the velocity that volcanoes eject rocks from geological evidence. You know the gravitational acceleration of objects falling near the surface of Mars is only 40% that on the Earth. You can look up the height of Martian volcanoes and determine the distance rocks from a volcano hit the ground from pictures of the Martian surface. If you assume the rocks farthest from a volcano were ejected at an angle of 45 degrees, what is the magnitude of the rock's velocity as a function of its distance from the volcano and the height of the volcano for the rock furthest from the volcano?

Answer 1