Question

A shooting star is a meteoroid that burns up when it reaches Earth’s atmosphere. Many of these meteoroids are quite small. Compare the kinetic energy of a shooting star to that of a moving car.What is the kinetic energy of a meteoroid of mass 4.96 g moving at a speed of 49.1 km/s?

Answer 1

we are asked to determine the kinetic energy of an object that has a mass of 4.96g. To do that we will use the following formula:

`K=(1)/(2)mv^2`

Where:

`\begin{gathered} K=\text{ kinetic energy }\lbrack J\rbrack \\ m=\text{ mass }\lbrack kg\rbrack \\ v=\text{ velocity }\lbrack(m)/(s)\rbrack \end{gathered}`

First, we will convert the mass into kilograms using the following conversion factor:

Now we multiply the mass by the conversion factor in decimal form:

Now, we convert the velocity into meters per second by converting kilometers into meters. To do that we will use the following conversion factor:

Now, we multiply the velocity by the conversion factor:

Now, we substitute the values in the formula for the kinetic energy:

`K=(1)/(2)(0.00496)(49100(m)/(s))^2`

Solving the operations:

`K=5.99*10^6J`

And thus we have determined the kinetic energy of the meteorite.