next up previous
Next: Question 6 Up: Examples 3 Previous: Question 4

Question 5

Before landing Armstrong and Aldrin on the Moon, the Apollo 11 space vehicle was put into an elliptical orbit about the Moon. The period of the orbit was 119 minutes. The maximum and minimum distances from the centre of the Moon were 1861 km and 1838 km. Find the mass of the Moon from this information.

[Hints can be found here, but do not follow this link until you have attempted the question on your own.]



Mike Birse
2000-03-31