Question

An astronaut orbiting the earth in a circular orbit of 120 km above the earth's surface, gently drops a spoon out of the spaceship. The spoon is likely to:

• A. fall vertically down to the earth surface.
• B. move towards the moon.
• C. move along with the spaceship.
• D. move in an irregular way and then fall down to earth.

Answer 1

The correct option is C

move along with the spaceship.

Orbital Velocity $\left(v_o\right)$ is the speed of an object in an orbit. It is the speed for which the object stays in the orbit under the influence of only gravitational pull. It depends on the distance from the object to the center of the earth and the mass of the Earth.
Orbital velocity is given as $v_0=\sqrt{\frac{GM}{R}}$
where R: Distance of the satellite from the centre of the Earth
and M: Mass of the Earth.
The velocity of the spoon is equal to the orbital velocity when dropped out of the spaceship. Hence, it keeps moving along with the spaceship.