You may have heard of a solar sail, in which a spacecraft is propelled by the mo

Question

You may have heard of a solar sail, in which a spacecraft is propelled by the momentum ofre il is near Earth orbit, where proximate the sun of wavelength around 550 nm. For simplicity, assume that the sail absorbs all the t from the sun. Current plans involve using a 1 km by 1 km sail. Suppose the sa the intensity of light is around 1400 W/m2 in space. Also suppose that you can ap light that's incident on it, taking on its momentum. 3) what is the force on the solar sail? (Hint: force is change in momentum per unit of time: Ap/t ) a. 4.2× 1017 N b. 4.67 N c. 0.0056 N Page 1 of 10

Explanation / Answer

Energy of photon = h c / lambda

Power absorbed = (1400 W/m^2) (1000 m)^2

= 1.4 x 10^9 W

photon incident per second = 1.4 x 10^9 lambda / hc photons/s

momentum of each photon = h / lambda

momentum transferred per unit time

= (h / lambda) (1.4 x 10^9 lambda / h c)

= (1.4 x 10^9)/(3 x 10^8)

= 4.67 N

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