Question

You are an astronomer looking up at the night sky and locate another asteroid moving across the night sky. You observe the asteroid over the course of several seconds moving in a straight line and record you data. You put together your graph as seen here. Based on the data presented in the graph above, what would you estimate was the average velocity of this asteroid?

Answer 1

Without the graph, we cannot calculate the specific average velocity of the asteroid. Generally, average velocity is found by dividing the displacement by the total time taken, which is information typically provided by a position-versus-time graph.

Step-by-step explanation:

The student's question pertains to the calculation of average velocity of an asteroid based on a graph, which implies a working knowledge of kinematics, a subtopic of physics. As there is no graph provided with the question, a direct calculation cannot be performed. However, in a general sense, to determine the average velocity, one would divide the total displacement (change in position) by the total time taken for the asteroid to travel that distance as shown in the graph. For instance, if an asteroid moves from a position of 0 km to 10 km in a span of 5 seconds, the average velocity would be calculated as (10 km - 0 km) / 5 s = 2 km/s.