A student has a mass of 80kg. How much would the student weigh on the surface of the Moon?
The Moon has a mass, MM = 7.35 x 1022kgThe Moon has a radius, RM = 1.74 x 10m
We want to determine the gravitational constant for the Moon's surface to then calculate the weight of the student using Newton's Second law : W = mg, where: W represents the student's weight m is the student's mass g is the gravitational constant (the acceleration)
To calculate g for the Moon, we can use the equation F = GMm/r2From Newton's Second law, we know that F = mg and so we can substitute for F to form: g = GM/r2Substituting our measurements for the Moon's radius and mass, we obtain: g = 1.62m/s2
Finally, to calculate the student's weight we use W = mg, where m is the mass of the student and we have already calculated g.Our final result is: W = 80kg x 1.62m/s2 = 130N
