| Suppose a person on Earth were to hold a cardboard circle to the
sun so that the sun is blocked out or covered (DO NOT REALLY DO THIS -
YOU'LL CAUSE PERMANENT EYE INJURY). How big of a cardboard circle must
be used to block out the sun.
The distance from the sun to the earth is about 150,000,000 km. The
diameter of the sun is about 1,350,000 km.
This experiment was actually done by scientists using special equipment. They found out that to block out the sun, a card the size of 2.54 cm (one inch wide) would have to be held 273 cm (about 107.5 inches) from your eye to block out the sun. In other words, the piece of cardboard is what the size of the sun would look like from earth. See the picture below for a graphic look at this. |
|
Using the information above, you can find what the size of the sun
would be from your space colony.
You can use ratios to do this.
For example, we would use the formula
Diameter of the cardboard circle
Diameter of the Sun
_______________________________ =
_______________________
Distance from observer to cardboard
Distance from observer to Sun
remenber that d is the size of the cardboard, so
d (in cm)
1,350, 000 km
_____________________
= __________________________________
273 cm
Distance from your colony to Sun in km
Therefore
( 273 ) ( 1,350,000 )
d (in cm)
= ___________________________________
Distance from your colony to Sun in km
Return to Space Colony WebQuest
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