PRACTICE PROBLEM 3: Identifying what went wrong. Mirabelle was given the followi

Question

PRACTICE PROBLEM 3: Identifying what went wrong. Mirabelle was given the following problem Titan is one of Saturn's moons. It has a radius of 2575 km and is (on average) 1.222x106 km from Saturn. How large an angle on the sky does the diameter of Titan subtend as seen by someone on the "surface" of Saturn? Give your answer in degrees. Mirabelle provided the following answer to this problem: angular size-360 physical size = 360° 1.222x10° km 2TR360 1.22210 2×2575 km Mirabelle has made at least one mistake in solving this problem. Please identify all of the mistakes that Mirabelle made below and describe how you would fix them. What is the correct answer to this question? Show all ofyour work and remember units. .Based on what you have found, can the angular size of an object in the sky ever exceed 180°? Explain why or why not.

Explanation / Answer

Angular size = physical size / distance radians
                    = (360/ 2pi) * physical size / distance degrees
physical size is diameter of Titan

Angular size = (360/2*3.14) * ( 2* 2575 / 1.222x106 )
                    = 0.24 deg

Angle made by two points at infinite distance from each other at any pont out side the line, joining two points, is 180 deg. So angulr size of an object can never exceed 180 deg.

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