You are the captain of a spaceship that is circling through a binary star system. Due to the gravitational forces and the rocket engines, the orbit of your spaceship looks like that:

The position of your spaceship (in AU) at the time t (in days) is given by:
x= 5sin(t) y= sin(2t) z= 0
a) How long does it take your spaceship to circle the orbit once?
b) Find an equation that calculates the velocity v(t) of your spaceship at a given time t.
c) The two stars are positioned at the points (4,0,0) and (-4,0,0): what is the distance of your spaceship to the stars at the time t = π/2 ?
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Expert's answer
2019-05-13T11:19:41-0400
a) Period of time to circe orbit at once equal to 2π≈6.28 days
b) Velocity (in AU per day):
vx(t)=dtdx=5cos(t)vy(t)=dtdy=2cos(2t)
v(t)=vx2(t)+vy2(t)=25cos2(t)+4cos2(2t)
c) At time t=π/2,x=5,y=0,z=0
Therefore, distance to the star at the point (4,0,0) is 1 a.u.,
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