A certain comet of mass 3 × 1015 kg at its closest approach to the Sun is observed to be at a distance 5.8 × 1011 m from the center of the Sun, moving with speed 23000 m/s. At a later time the comet is observed to be at a distance 40.9 × 1011 m from the center of the Sun, and the angle between and the velocity vector is measured to be 10.33°. What is ?

it would be c. predictability

russian is not my first language, so i'm afraid i can't write out an answer in russian, but hopefully you can find a way to do so. here's my best translation of the problem: you're given a plot of a particle's position in one-dimensional space over time, and you're asked to find either the total distance traveled by the particle after 6 seconds had elapsed, or the total displacement of the particle after 6 seconds.

if you want the total distance traveled, you would first need to determine the particle's velocity as a function of time, then integrate that over the 6-second interval. we know the position function is quadratic with roots at 0 and 6, so we have

where is unknown. because the position is parabolic, there is symmetry about the midpoint at , and we know that

so that the position function is

which means the velocity is

then the total distance traveled is

so the total distance traveled is 20 m.

on the other hand, if you want to find displacement: the particle starts at and ends at , so its displacement is 0.