Suppose you could fit 100 dimes, end to end, between your card with the pinhole and your dime-sized sunball. how many suns could it fit between earth and the sun?

Question

asked Feb 20, 2020 50.5k views

1 Answer

Fvu · Answer 1 · 2020-02-24T22:20:24+0000

Answer: 100 suns

Step-by-step explanation:

We can solve this with the following relation:

(d)/(x_(sunball-pinhole))=(D)/(x_(sun-pinhole))

Where:

d=17.91 mm =17.91(10)^(-3) m is the diameter of a dime

is the diameter of the Sun

x_(sun-pinhole)=150,000,000 km=1.5(10)^(11) m is the distance between the Sun and the pinhole

x_(sunball-pinhole)=100 d=1.791 m is the amount of dimes that fit in a distance between the sunball and the pinhole

Finding
:

D=(d)/(x_(sunball-pinhole))x_(sun-pinhole)

D=(17.91(10)^(-3) m)/(1.791 m) 1.5(10)^(11) m

D=1.5(10)^(9) m This is roughly the diameter of the Sun

Now, the distance between the Earth and the Sun is one astronomical unit (1 AU), which is equal to:

1 AU=149,597,870,700 m

So, we have to divide this distance between
in order to find how many suns could it fit in this distance:

$(149,597,870,700 m)/(1.5(10)^(9)  m)=99.73 suns \approx 100 suns$