Question

During the daylight, you hold a ruler in a distance of 60 cm away from your eyes, and you find
the size of the Moon to be 0.55 cm (try it yourself!). At night, you use a telescope to observe rock
formations and craters on the Moon to estimate the diameter of the Moon to be about 3500 km.
Find the distance to the Moon by using only the information from this experiment.

Answer 1

Answer:

381,818.182 km

Explanation:

Set up a proportion: 60cm/.55cm = X km/3500km

Cross multiply, and you get X (distance to the moon) of 381,818.182 km.

Answer 2

Thus the distance to the moon is 381, 818 Km

Explanation:

Given data:

• Distance of ruler = 60 cm
• Size of moon = 0.55 cm
• Diameter of moon = 3500 Km

Solution:

Set a proportional relation between diameter of moon, distance of ruler and size of moon.

Distance of moon / Diameter = Distance of ruler / Size of image

Distance of moon / 3500 Km = 60 cm / 0.55 cm

Distance of moon = 381, 818 Km

The accuracy of the experiment results is limited by the precision results.