1st2fall
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Homework Statement
Certain neutron stars (extremely dense stars) are believed to be rotating at about 6 rev/s. If such a star has a radius of 15 km, what must be its minimum mass so that material on its surface remains in place during the rapid rotation?
G=6.67*10-11m3 kg-1 s-2
Homework Equations
F_c{}=\frac{mv^{2}}{r}
F_g{}=\frac{GM_1{M_2{}}}{r^{2}}
The Attempt at a Solution
30\pikm*6rev/s=180\pikm/s
which gives the linear velocity of something on the surface of the neutron star... but I'm clueless as to how to arrive at a mass of the star from it. I could the Centripetal acceleration but I'm not sure how that's related here. the only thing I can think of there is setting the centripetal acceleration equal to the gravitation acceleration which gives
Gm/r2=v2/r
m=v2r/G
which yields something like 7.28635682 × 10^24(kg?)
I'm just looking for advice on what I'm actually looking to do. I don't know what I should be looking for...