Answer is at the very end
Explanation:
Given parameters:
Mass of the asteroid = 10 x 10⁹kg
Distance between the asteroid = 850km
Unknown:
Force = ?
Solution:
We can predict the outcome of this reduction in distance between the two masses using the newton's law of universal gravitation.
The law states that "the gravitational force of attraction between two masses is directly proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distances between them".
Mathematically, we have;
F =
F is the gravitational force
G is the universal gravitational constant = 6.67 x 10⁻¹¹Nm²kg⁻²
m is the mass of the body
r is the distance between them.
From this, we know that as the separation increases, the force of gravitation will reduce since the mass is constant.
The distance between the two asteroids decreased from 1000km to 850km, this will increase the force of attraction between them and we expect the force to be higher than 6700N.
At 1000Km, force = 6700N,
since as the distance reduces the force increases, we expect the force to be about 9200N.
Let us verify this by plugging the values into the equation:
F =
F = 9200N
