Suppose two astronauts on a spacewalk are floating motionless in space, 3.0 m apart. astronaut b tosses a 15.0 kg imax camera to astronaut a. the imax camera is traveling with a speed of 7.5 m/s. what is the resulting speed of astronaut a after catching the camera?

(we need the mass of the astronaut A)

Explanation:

We can solve this by using the conservation law of the linear momentum P. First we need to represent every mass as a particle. Also we can simplify this system of particles by considering only the astronaut A with an initial speed of 0 m/s and a mass and the IMAX camera with an initial speed of 7.5 m/s and a mass of 15.0 kg.

The law of conservation says that the linear momentum P (the sum of the products between all masses and its speeds) is constant in time. The equation for this is:

By the law of conservation we know that

For (final linear momentum) we need to treat the collision as a plastic one (the two particles stick together after the encounter).

So:

powerful computers now, not then

this could be newton#'s law of cooling. the cooling curve is exponential