Question

in the densest part of saturn's rings, each ring particle collides with another about every 5 hours. if a ring particle survived for 100 million years, how many collisions would it have experienced? express your answer in scientific notation to one significant figure.

Answer 1

A ring particle that survived for 100 million years would have experienced approximately 2 x 10^11 collisions, calculated by converting the total time into hours and dividing by the collision frequency of every 5 hours.

Step-by-step explanation:

To calculate the number of collisions a ring particle would have experienced if it survived for 100 million years, we first convert 100 million years into hours since we know the frequency of collisions:

100 million years * (365 days/year) * (24 hours/day) = Number of hours in 100 million years.

Then, divide the total number of hours by the collision frequency of 5 hours per collision:

Number of hours in 100 million years / 5 hours = Number of collisions.

As an example:

• 100,000,000 years * 365 * 24 = 8.76 x 1011 hours.
• 8.76 x 1011 hours / 5 = 1.75 x 1011 collisions.

To express this in scientific notation with one significant figure, we get 2 x 1011 collisions.