Question

A satellite completes one revolution of a planet in almost exactly one hour. At the end of one hour, the satellite has traveled 2.0 × 107 meters and is only 10 meters away from its starting point. What is the numerical value of the satellite's average velocity after that one hour? 3.77 × 10–2 meters/second

Answer 1

Velocity =

(distance between start point and end point, regardless of the route traveled) / (time spent traveling).

That distance (called the "displacement"), is 10 meters, and almost exactly 1 hour is almost exactly 3,600 seconds. So the numerical value of the velocity during that time is

(10) / (3,600) = almost exactly 0.00278 m/s

= 2.78 x 10^-3 m/s.