Calculating Acceleration of a Solar Sail at a Distance from the Sun

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In summary, the conversation discusses calculating the acceleration of a solar sail located 1.46e8 km from the sun with a power of 10^20 kw. The sail has an area of 200m^2 and a mass of 10kg. The formula f=2IA/c is mentioned, but there is confusion about the value of D, which is believed to represent distance. It is mentioned that the answer will be "real tiny" due to the large distance and the fact that the power is divided by the surface area of a sphere. The person also mentions using Newton's f=ma formula to calculate the acceleration. It is noted that the person has asked a similar question before, but did not respond to the answers
  • #1
purduegrad
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well doing lots of problems for finals and posting the ones i can't get...again I am havin trouble with this reflection stuff

A solar sail of area A=200m^2 is at a distance 1.46e8 km from the sun. suppose the power of the sun is 10^20 kw and the sail is perfectly reflecting ( think you use f=2IA /c ) mass is 10kg, calculate the accel of the sail at this point in space...


again not sure here... how you get it
 
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  • #2
Well, I don't know how you get D, because you didn't say what D means!
I would be inclined to think that D means "Distance" but you are explicitely told what that is.

The reason the answer is "real tiny" is that the power 1020 is divided by the surface area of a sphere with radius 1.45x1014km. before be multiplied by the area of the sail to get the power actually delivered to the sail.
 
  • #3
i dunno, I am confused, lol we just need accel, i was going to use Newtons f=ma
 
  • #4
Didn't you post a question about the pressure due to reflected light just a few days ago? Several folks answered, but you never responded. The same reasoning would apply here.
 

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