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4A robot on Mars records the temperature every Mars day. A summary series, showing

every one hundredth Mars day, is shown in the table below.
Number of
Mars days
Temp. (°C) -43-15-5-21-59-79-68-50-27-8-15-70-78-68
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000 1100 1200 1300
a Find the maximum and minimum temperatures recorded by the robot.
b Find a sine model for the temperature T in terms of the number of Mars days n.
Use this information to estimate the length of a Mars year.

4A robot on Mars records the temperature every Mars day. A summary series, showing-example-1
User Lucky Mike
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1 Answer

6 votes

Explanation:

a)

the minimum is -79°.

the maximum is -5°.

b)

the period of local maximum to local maximum is 700 days from -5° to -8°.

the period of local minimum to local minimum is also 700 days from -79° to -78°.

that suggests the sine function here has a wavelength of period of 700 days. so, 0 .. 2pi rad corresponds to 0 .. 700 days.

the maximum temperature (-5°) corresponds to pi/2 (= 2pi/4 corresponding to 700/4 = 175 days), the minimum (-79°) to 3pi/2 (= 3 × pi/2 = 3×175 = 525 days).

0 and pi must then correspond to the middle of the extremes: (-5 + -79)/2 = -84/2 = -42°.

the amplitude (from the middle to the maximum or minimum) is then |-42 - -5| = 37°.

so, our approximate model would be

T(n) = -42 + 37×sin(n×2pi/700)

it has to start at about -42° with n=0, then it would reach from there a maximum (as the temperature first goes up by about 37°) at about day 175, goes down to about -42° again at day 350, goes down to the minimum at about day 525. and then back up to about -42° at day 700.

with every change from middle to maximum, maximum to middle, middle to minimum, minimum to middle being about 37°.

c)

the year on Mars would be a long as the period of our sine curve : 700 days (e.g. from the warmest day to the next warmest day).

User Matt Tenenbaum
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7.8k points

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