Question

A comet fragment of mass 1.96 × 1013 kg is moving at 6.50 × 104 m/s when it crashes into Callisto, a moon of Jupiter. The mass of Callisto is 1.08 × 1023 kg. The collision is completely inelastic. Assuming for this calculation that Callisto's initial momentum is zero kg · m/s, what is the recoil speed of Callisto immediately after the collision?

Answer 1

Answer:

Recoil speed, $1.17\times 10^{-5}\ m/s$                          

Explanation:

Given that,

Mass of the comet fragment, $m_1=1.96\times 10^{13}\ kg$

Speed of the comet fragment, $v_1=6.5\times 10^4\ m/s$

Mass of Callisto, $m_2=1.08\times 10^{23}\ kg$

The collision is completely inelastic. Assuming for this calculation that Callisto's initial momentum is zero. So,

$m_1v_1=(m_2+m_2)V$

V is recoil speed of Callisto immediately after the collision.

$V=\dfrac{m_1v_1}{(m_2+m_2)}\\\\V=\dfrac{1.96\times 10^{13}\times 6.5\times 10^4}{(1.96\times 10^{13}+1.08\times 10^{23})}\\\\V=1.17\times 10^{-5}\ m/s$

So, the recoil speed of Callisto immediately after the collision is $1.17\times 10^{-5}\ m/s$