Question

Collisions in Saturn’s Rings: Each of the particles 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?

Answer 1

To determine the number of collisions a Saturn ring particle would experience over 100 million years, convert the years to hours and then divide by the collision interval of 5 hours.

Step-by-step explanation:

The student is asking about the number of collisions a ring particle in Saturn's rings would experience over a particular period. Given that each ring particle collides with another every 5 hours, to find the total number of collisions for any period, we need to calculate the number of 5-hour intervals in that period. For a duration of 100 million years, we first convert years into hours:

100 million years = 100,000,000 years
× 365.25 days/year (accounting for leap years)
× 24 hours/day

This yields the total number of hours in 100 million years, which we then divide by the collision interval (5 hours). This calculation gives us the total number of collisions a ring particle would have experienced.