Question

A Sense of Proportion: Saturn is about 60,000 km in radius, and its rings are only about 0.01 km thick with ripples 100m high. Design a really big model with Saturn 60 inches in radius (10 feet in diameter). How thick must the rings be in your model and how high can the ripples be

Answer 1

The thickness of ring in model is 0.00001 inch and the height of ring is 0.0001 inch.

Step-by-step explanation:

The radius of Saturn = 60000 km

The thickness of rings = 0.01 km

The height of ring ripples = 100 m or 0.1 km

Now design a new model with a radius of 60 inches.

Therefore, the radius of Saturn (600000 km) = radius of the model (60 inches)

Here, one inch of the model will be equal to 1000 km of Saturn.

1 km of Saturn = 0.001 inch of model

Thickness of ring = 0.01 km

Therefore, thickness of ring in model = 0.01 x 0.001 = 0.00001 inch

The height of Saturn ring = 0.1 km

Therefore, the height of ring in model = 0.1 x 0.001 = 0.0001 inch.