A meteor this past year was tracked while it re-entered the earth's atmosphere going 18,000 mph. The enormous air friction on it caused it to lose 90% of its velocity in about 10 seconds. How far did it travel in kilometers during this time?

Question

Alexandria Newton

Physics

2 March, 06:10

A meteor this past year was tracked while it re-entered the earth's atmosphere going 18,000 mph. The enormous air friction on it caused it to lose 90% of its velocity in about 10 seconds. How far did it travel in kilometers during this time?

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Answers (1)

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Dorian Hale · Answer 1

44257m

Explanation:

first we convert the initial velocity to m / s

Vo=initial velocity=18000Mph * (0.44m/s) / 1mph=8046.7m/s

As the meteorite lost 90% of its speed, it means that it is moving with 10% of the initial speed

Vf=final velocity = (0.1) (8046.7) = 804.67m/s

As the meteorite has a uniformly accelerated movement we can use the following equation

A=aceleration = (Vf-Vi) / t

A = (804.67-8046.7) / 10=-724.2m/S^2

finally to calculate the displacement we use the following equation

(Vf^2-Vo^2) / 2A=X=displacement

X = (804.67^2-8046.7^2) / (2*-724.2) = 44257m