The Hubble Space Telescope (HST) travels in a circular orbit above the Earth’s atmosphere, allowing astronomers to conduct aberration-free measurement. The HST has a mass of 11,110 kg. (a) The HST completes one circular orbit around Earth in 5725 s. How high is its orbit above the surface of the Earth? (b) The HST is estimated to have a lifetime of about 15 more years before crashing into the earth due to atmospheric drag. Estimate how much work the atmosphere does per circular orbit on the HST.Assume the work done and the period are the same for each revolution (realistically both of these quantities would change as the orbital radius decreased).
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We may see thousands of stars in the dark sky. Our universe consists of billions of stars. Stars may appear tiny to us but they are huge balls of gasses. Sun is a star of average size. Some stars are even a thousand times larger than the sun. The stars do not exist forever they have a certain lifetime. The life span of the sun is about 10 billion years. The star undergoes various changes during its lifetime, this process is called stellar evolution. The structure of the sun-like star is shown below.
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The Hubble Space Telescope (HST) travels in a circular orbit above the Earth’s atmosphere, allowing astronomers to
(a) The HST completes one circular orbit around Earth in 5725 s. How high is its orbit above the surface of the Earth?
(b) The HST is estimated to have a lifetime of about 15 more years before crashing into the earth due to atmospheric drag. Estimate how much work the atmosphere does per circular orbit on the HST.Assume the work done and the period are the same for each revolution (realistically both of these quantities would change as the orbital radius decreased).
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