Two identical spaceships are traveling in deep space, far fr…
Two identical spaceships are traveling in deep space, far from any planet or stars. The ships travel in the same direction, with the slower one directly behind the faster one. The ships are connected by a cable attached to a spool, so that part of the cable outside the ships can be made longer or shorter as needed. The cable is used to bring the ships to the same speed for a transfer of cargo. The graph above shows the speed of the two ships during a 10 second interval. Does at least one of the ships have its engine turned on during the time interval shown, and what evidence indicates so? The horizontal axis shows time from 0 to 10 seconds, and the vertical axis shows velocity from about 7990 to 8010 meters per second. Two sets of data points are plotted: solid dots for Ship 1 and open circles for Ship 2. Ship 1 starts near (0,8100) and trends to (10,8005). Ship 2 starts near (0,7990) and trends to (10,8005).
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