The spaceship Intergalactica lands on the surface of the uninhabited Pink Planet

Question

The spaceship Intergalactica lands on the surface of the uninhabited Pink Planet, which orbits a rather average star in the distant Garbanzo Galaxy. A scouting party sets out to explore. The party's leader–a physicist, naturally–immediately makes a determination of the acceleration due to gravity on the Pink Planet's surface by means of a simple pendulum of length 1.32 m. She sets the pendulum swinging, and her collaborators carefully count 103 complete cycles of oscillation during 206 s. What is the result?

Explanation / Answer

T = 2pi (L/g)^0.5

L = 1.32m
103T = 206s
T = 206/103 = 2
Putting the values into the original expression, g = (2pi)^2 * L/T^2 = 13.02m/s^2

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