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Thank you We sneak and here's your shmoop du jour

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Brought to you by space junk man The intergalactic police

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should really have stricter laws to help produce alien littering

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Alright Thanks to space junk a satellite has been bumped

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from its previous circular orbit into a new circular orbit

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The technicians on the ground report that the satellite is

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now orbiting at a distance ten percent greater than it

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was previously Which of the following would help bring the

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satellite into its proper orbit And here the potential answers

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rockets to speed it up Slow precinct transporting cargo All

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right so we've got a satellite in orbit and the

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distance of its orbit has changed What we need to

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understand is how the mass and velocity of the satellite

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affect its orbital distance Well the equation used to calculate

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the velocity of an object orbiting the earth is velocity

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squared equals the gravitational constant times mass divided by the

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objects distance from the earth That looks like this harry

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thing right there It's important to remember that the mass

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in this equation isn't the mass of the satellite it's

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the mass of the earth the mass of the satellite

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Doesn't influence this equation so we can eliminate options See

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indeed Taking a look at the equation basic math tells

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us that if the distance increases well velocity decreases We

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can also rearrange the equation to solve for the distance

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And that would look like this We're looking at it

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this way We know that if the velocity increases the

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distance decreases Got it So option a is the correct

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answer Kind of power of the jets and lower the

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satellite back to where it belongs But let's cover our

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bases here We can also think about this question in

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terms of proportions If we have our original equation velocity

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squared equals g times mass divided by distance Then we

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can compare that to the velocity and distance of the

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bump satellite let's Make that equation Velocity b for bunk

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squared equals g times mass divided by distance Be now

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let's Put one over the other to create the proportion

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like that And it'll look a little something like this

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Yeah And you can rearrange that to produce the correct

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velocity Well this means that the original velocity is larger

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than the bump velocity because the bump distance is larger

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Than the original distance as was the case here Sometimes

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there are multiple ways to solve a problem so it's

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important Remember that if we do get stuck on a

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problem to see if there's another approach we can take

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to find an answer Sometimes our brains can lock on

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a one thing and not see that other past Khun

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get us to the promised land Stepping back and taking

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a fresh look helps clear things up And speaking of

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clearing things up well how about holding these littering aliens

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a little more accountable and it's a mess up there

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