The moon's distance from the earth is 360000km and its diameter extends an angle of 31' at the eye of an observer. Find the diameter of the moon.
in Trigonometry Answers by

Your answer

Your name to display (optional):
Privacy: Your email address will only be used for sending these notifications.
Anti-spam verification:
To avoid this verification in future, please log in or register.

1 Answer

Convert the angle to radians: 31/60×π/180 then multiply by 360000=3246km approx.

If you’re not very mathematically minded think of it like this:

31 minutes is about half a degree, and there are 360 degrees in a circle, so half a degree is about 1/720 of the circumference of a circle. The moon’s orbit is approximately circular with a radius of 360000km, so the circumference of the orbit of the moon is about 720000π km (2πr). The diameter of the moon (width) is therefore 720000π/720=1000π km. And the value of π is roughly 3.14. So that is 3140 km. 31 minutes is slightly more than half a degree so the moon’s diameter is slightly more (31/30) than 3140km, and that is the answer we got: 3246km. 

Note that when an angle is small, the sine and tangent of the angle and the angle itself (in radians) are approximately equal.

by Top Rated User (1.2m points)

Related questions

1 answer
asked May 1, 2013 in Trigonometry Answers by anonymous | 624 views
1 answer
asked Feb 11, 2014 in Other Math Topics by anonymous | 479 views
1 answer
asked Feb 8, 2012 in Algebra 1 Answers by anonymous | 1.2k views
Welcome to MathHomeworkAnswers.org, where students, teachers and math enthusiasts can ask and answer any math question. Get help and answers to any math problem including algebra, trigonometry, geometry, calculus, trigonometry, fractions, solving expression, simplifying expressions and more. Get answers to math questions. Help is always 100% free!
87,516 questions
100,279 answers
2,420 comments
732,353 users