Question

Radio telescope has a parabolic surface, as shown below. A parabola opening up with vertex at the origin is graphed on the coordinate plane. The height of the parabola from top to bottom is 1 meter and its width from left to right is 12 meters. If the telescope is 1 m deep and 12 m wide, how far is the focus from the vertex?

1 m
36 m
3 m
9 m

Answer 1

There are several information's that are already given in the question. Based on those given information's, one can say that the origin of the parabola is opening up with the vertex of the parabola. We already know that the formula for a parabola with vertex at the origin is x^2 = 4py, where "p" is the focus. Now putting the dimensions given in the question in the formula, we get 0.25 as the correct result. I hope the answer has come to your help.

Explanation: