Planet Puzzle

Your Name:

Your Teacher: Class Time:

Your warp drive fails while rushing to the starbase near 61 Cygni A. Seeking dilithium, you use remaining impulse power to approach an uncharted planet which is mostly covered with oceans. With a mass of 4.7 times Earth's mass, the planet is more massive than Earth. The planet is a bit smaller than Earth: its radius is 0.4 times the Earth's radius.

Klingons are able to work under adverse conditions including gravitational pulls of up to 7.3 times that of Earth (Earth surface has g=9.8 m/s² ).

Can you beam the Klingons down to the surface to search for dilithium or should you attempt to find dilithium from orbit and then beam the dilithium aboard?

Send the Klingons down
Work from orbit

Your away team should expect a surface gravitational pull of times that on the surface of Earth. (Your answer should include 3 significant digits!)

Explain how you figured out your answer: