An asteroid heads for Earth at 12 km/s. In addition, a NASA space team is able to attach a rocket booster to the asteroid, which then allows the asteroid to move at 28 degrees to its original path to a speed of 20km/s. What is its average accleration for acceleartion at (x) and acceleartion at(y).

Question

For acceleration (x) I got 12.9 m/s^2,but I am not sure about that or acceleartion at (y). Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

I may be missing something, but I don't see how you can compute an acceleration without knowing how long it takes to make the velocity vector change you mentioned. This would be the rocket "burn time" for example.

Answer 2

I see that you later "updated" the question with the burn time. It was then answered by BobPursley