Spaceship Kinetic Energy Change · CAP 2002 #14

Physics · mechanics

Problem

A spaceship is moving straight toward Earth with its engine turned off. Let M and m be the masses of the Earth and of the spaceship, respectively, with R the distance from the spaceship to the centre of the Earth. As a result of the gravitational force of the Earth, in moving from position 1 to position 2, the kinetic energy of the spaceship increases by (a) GMm(R2−R1)R1R2\frac{GMm(R_2-R_1)}{R_1 R_2} (b) GMm(R1−R2)R1R2\frac{GMm(R_1-R_2)}{R_1 R_2} (c) GMm(R2−R1)R12R22\frac{GMm(R_2-R_1)}{R_1^2 R_2^2} (d) GMm(R1−R2)R12R22\frac{GMm(R_1-R_2)}{R_1^2 R_2^2}

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