Question

An astronaut is outside their spaceship working on repairing a panel. They push off of the spaceship with a force of -12 N. Their mass is 167 kg and their ship's mass is 5.3 *105 kg. What is the acceleration of the astronaut

Answer 1

To determine the acceleration of the astronaut, we can apply Newton's second law of motion, which states that the force acting on an object is equal to its mass multiplied by its acceleration.

The net force acting on the astronaut is the force they exerted by pushing off the spaceship, which is -12 N. Since the force exerted on the astronaut is in the opposite direction, we consider it negative.

Let's assume the acceleration of the astronaut is "a" in m/s².

According to Newton's second law, we can write the equation as:

Force = Mass × Acceleration

-12 N = 167 kg × a

To solve for "a," we can rearrange the equation:

a = -12 N / 167 kg

a ≈ -0.0719 m/s²

The negative sign indicates that the astronaut's acceleration is in the direction opposite to the force they exerted.