How can you determine the diameter of the sun?
1 Answer
If
Using the small angle approximation (
Explanation:
Draw the sun, given the sun some size, draw a point to represent the location of the earth (this does NOT need to be to scale).
Draw a line from the location of the earth to the center of the sun.
Draw the diameter of the sun at right angles to this like.
Make an isosceles triangle by connecting the ends of the diameter to the loctaion of the earth. Should look something like this.
rearranging we have
since
Using the small angle approximation (which only works in radians) we have,
If we have
giving
note that