Question

A person is in a plane 12.5 km above the ocean. How far from the plane can the person see out on the ocean? (The radius of Earth is 6378 km.)

The person can see approximately km.
(Type an integer or a decimal rounded to two dečimal places as needed.)

Answer 1

Explanation:

The line fron the airplane wich is tangent to earth surface is also perpendicular to the radius as you can see in the figure. So is valid to contruct the right-angled triangle as shown in the second figure.

`r^2+(r+h)^2=x^2\\\\r=6378Km,~h=12.5Km\\\\x^2=81517374.25\\\\x=9028.7Km`