| The French
author Antoine de Saint-Exupery tells us that the Little Prince could walk
around his planet in about one hour. Assuming the Prince walked at a normal
rate, the radius of his planet must have been about 1 km. The story implies
the Prince's weight was normal, which means that the value of "g" on his
planet was the same as on Earth (about 10 m/s2). What is the
mass of this tiny planet?
The Prince's mass is 40 kg and he weighs 400 N. Remember that G = 6.67 x 10-11 N-m2/kg2. (Bonus... what is the planet's density?) |
 |