Recent content by weltza

did the binding energy come from the proton or the electron, is what I'm asking.

The mass of the hydrogen atom is smaller than the sum of the masses of a proton and an electron. The mass difference is converted into binding energy. Mass was converted, and you know where it went (into binding energy). Where did the mass come from, the electron or proton??

gotcha, thanks!

by huge eccentricity do you mean just less than 1? because e=1 is a parabola and >1 is hyperbola. I am not quite sure what equation I should be using.

ok, maybe you could give me a little more guidance. This is my first week of astronomy. Is the ellipse is pencil thin because the stone has such a small mass compared to earth? And can I then just find the change in KE based on the change in PE? Or am I still missing something?

well, I was thinking of using taking the work Earth does on the stone and subtracting the kenetic energy of the stone based on the orbital velocity. but, I'm not sure if the problem wants me to take into account the gravity of the moon. also, I could use gravitational potential of Earth...

I have a bunch of ideas how to solve this problem, but I cannot figure out which one is right... A stone is released from rest at the Moon’s orbit and falls towards the Earth. What is the stone’s speed when it is 96,000 km from the center of the Earth? Thanks, Adam