Question

An astronaut drops a rock on the surface of an asteroid.The rock is released from rest at a height of 0.86 m above the ground, and hits the ground 1.37 s later. Part A) What is the acceleration due to gravity on this asteroid?

Answer 1

Answer:

$a_y=0.92m/s^2$

Explanation:

To solve this problem we use the formula for accelerated motion:

$y=y_0+v_{y0}t+\frac{a_yt^2}{2}$

We will take the initial position as our reference ($y_0=0m$) and the downward direction as positive. Since the rock departs from rest we have:

$y=\frac{a_yt^2}{2}$

Which means our acceleration would be:

$a_y=\frac{2y}{t^2}$

Using our values:

$a_y=\frac{2(0.86m)}{(1.37s)^2}=0.92m/s^2$