Question

Using a dish-shaped mirror, a solar cooker concentrates the sun's energy onto a pot for cooking. A cooker with a 1.9-m-diameter dish focuses the sun's energy onto a pot with a diameter of 25 cm. Given that the intensity of sunlight is about 1000 W/m2

, how much solar power does the dish capture?

Answer 1

The solar cooker's dish, with a diameter of 1.9 meters, captures approximately 2835.75 watts of solar energy when the intensity of sunlight is 1000 W/m².

Step-by-step explanation:

The student is asking about the amount of solar power a dish-shaped solar cooker captures from the sun to heat a pot. To find this, we calculate the area of the dish-shaped mirror using the formula for the area of a circle (πr²), where 'r' is the radius of the dish. The diameter of the dish is given as 1.9 meters, so the radius is half of that, 0.95 meters. Substituting the radius into the area formula, we get the area of the dish.

Area = π(0.95 m)² ≈ 2.83575 m². Since the intensity of sunlight is given as about 1000 W/m², we can now calculate the power captured by the dish:

Power = Intensity × Area = 1000 W/m² × 2.83575 m² ≈ 2835.75 W.

Therefore, the solar cooker's dish captures approximately 2835.75 watts of solar energy.