Mass ablation/ejection[edit]

In a system where mass is being ejected or ablated from a main body, the derivation is slightly
different. At time t, let a mass m travel at a velocity v, meaning the initial momentum of the
system is

Since the main body will be losing mass, dm will be negative, meaning that at a time t +
dt the momentum of the system becomes

where u is the velocity of the ejected mass. Thus during dt the momentum of the system
varies for

This is the same dp as found in the mass accretion case above, meaning that the
same conclusion holds.[5]