Question

A couple of astronauts agree to rendezvous in space after hours. Their plan is to let gravity bring them together. She has a mass of 68 kgkg and he has a mass of 72 kgkg, and they start from rest 23.0 mm apart. As a rough approximation, we can model the astronauts as uniform spheres.

Find his initial acceleration.

Express your answer with the appropriate units.

Find her initial acceleration.

Express your answer with the appropriate units.

If the astronauts' acceleration remained constant, how many days would they have to wait before reaching each other? (Careful! They both have acceleration toward each other.)

Express your answer in days.

Would their acceleration, in fact, remain constant? If not, would it increase or decrease?

Answer 1