Space Lan

What is the relative speed between the spaceship and the asteroid?

A spaceship and an asteroid are moving in the same direction away from Earth with speeds of 0.78c and 0.41c, respectively. What is the relative speed between the spaceship and the asteroid? Please help! I'm so confused!

Public Comments

1. Use the relativistic velocity-addition formula u'=(u-v)/(1-uv/c^2) u' is the velocity of the spaceship relative to the asteroid, u is the velocity of the ship relative to Earth, and v is the velocity of the asteroid relative to Earth. So the ship is moving 0.544c relative to the asteroid