As a space shuttle moves through the diluted ionised gas of the Earth’s ionosphere, its potential is typically changed by before it completes one revolution. By assuming that the shuttle is a sphere of radius 10 m, we have to estimate the amount of charge it collects.

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We assume that the space shuttle is a sphere of radius . It is given that after each revolution in the Earth’s ionosphere the potential of the shuttle changes by . Let the additional charge that the shuttle accumulates in each revolution be .

From the definition of electric potential, we have

.

Therefore,