Randall D. Knight — Newton's Theory of Gravity: Problem 54

In 2014, the European Space Agency placed a satellite in orbit around comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko and then landed a probe on the surface. The actual orbit was elliptical, but we’ll approximate it as a 50-km-diameter circular orbit with a period of 11 days. a. What was the satellite’s orbital speed around the comet? (Both the comet and the satellite are orbiting the sun at a much higher speed.) b. What is the mass of the comet? c. The lander was pushed from the satellite, toward the comet, at a speed of 70 cm/s, and it then fell—taking about 7 hours—to the surface. What was its landing speed? The comet’s shape is irregular, but on average it has a diameter of 3.6 km.