Question

Homer places a toy rocket on the ground of his backyard, When Homer turns it on, he moves 8 meters away from it. Five seconds after the rocket is launches, Homer can see the rocket from a 75° angle of elevation while he is standing up. If Homer is 1.8 meters tall, how high is the rocket?

Answer 1

Explanation:

To find the height of the rocket, we can use the tangent function. We know the angle of elevation (75°), the height of Homer's eyes (1.8 meters), and the distance from Homer to the rocket (8 meters), so we can use the formula:

tan(angle) = height / distance

We'll solve for the height:

height = distance * tan(angle)

height = 8 * tan(75°)

However, we need to convert the angle from degrees to radians first, as the tangent function operates in radians. We can use the formula:

radians = degrees * (π / 180)

radians = 75° * (π / 180) = 1.309 radians

Now, we can substitute the value for the angle in radians back into the original equation:

height = 8 * tan(1.309)

Using a calculator, we can find that the height is approximately 15.57 meters.

So, the height of the rocket is approximately 15.57 meters.