Question

The orbital period of an object is 2 × 107 s and its total radius is 4 × 1010 m.The tangential speed of the satellite is ______________ m/s. (Round to the nearest whole number, do not add any punctuation.)

Answer 1

Answer: likely it is 12566 on Edge

Explanation: I got this wrong because my answer was originally also 12560. I believe that Edge is using 3.14159 for pi, instead of 3.14. The result therefore, should be 12566 on Edge.

Answer 2

Velocity = distance/time

Tangential velocity is the distance covered around the arc of the circular path per unit time.

The period is the time taken to cover one revolution and it is equal to the circumference of a circle. This means that the distance covered is 2pi x radius

Thus,

Tangential velocity = 2 x pi x radius/period

From the information given,

period = 2 x 10^7 s

radius = 4 x 10^10 m

pi = 3.14

Thus,

Tangential velocity = 2 x 3.14 x 4 x 10^10/2 x 10^7

Tangential velocity = 12560 m/s