Mass-photons-traveling at speed of light-have momentum

Reference no: EM13656208

Although they don’t have mass, photons—traveling at the speed of light—have momentum. Space travel experts have thought of capitalizing on this fact by constructing solar sails—large sheets of material that would work by reflecting photons. Since the momentum of the photon would be reversed, an impulse would be exerted on it by the solar sail, and—by Newton’s Third Law—an impulse would also be exerted on the sail, providing a force. In space near the Earth, about 3.84·10^21 photons are incident per square meter per second. On average, the momentum of each photon is 1.30·10^–27 kg m/s. Assume that we have a 1287 kg spaceship starting from rest attached to a square sail 29.9 m wide.

a) How fast could the ship be moving after 35 days?
b) How many months would it take the ship to attain a speed of 7.93 km/s, roughly the speed of the space shuttle in orbit?

Reference no: EM13656208

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