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

[purduegrad]

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

 

[HallsofIvy]

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.

 

[purduegrad]

i dunno, I am confused, lol we just need accel, i was going to use Newtons f=ma

 

[Doc Al]

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.