How To Find The Diameter Of The Sun

Science project

Measuring the Diameter of the Sun

Form Level: fifth - seventh; Type: Math/Astronomy

The goal of this experiment is to mensurate the bore of the lord's day. During the process of this experiment, the student will go familiar with working with ratios. This experiment tin be repeated to summate the diameter of the moon likewise.

What is the diameter of the lord's day?
What is the bore of the moon?

By knowing the altitude of the sun from the globe and setting up unproblematic ratios, students can calculate the diameter of the sun. The lord's day is approximately 93,000,000 miles (149,600,000 kilometers) from the earth.

Students will make a simple viewing apparatus from which they will produce an paradigm of the sun using a pinhole viewer and a cardboard upon which the prototype is reflected.

The ratio of the diameter of the sunday to the distance to the earth is proportional to the ration of the diameter of an epitome of the sunday to the distance between the paradigm of the sunday produced by a pinhole and the cardboard the image is reflected upon.

A/B = C/D

A is the diameter of the sunday (km).

B is the altitude between sun and earth (149,600,000 km).

C is the diameter of image (mm).

D is the distance between the epitome and the pinhole that produced information technology (mm).

Solving for A is simply a matter of multiplying B and C and dividing that production past D.

This is expressed every bit:

(B * C) / D = A

Virtually supplies are probably already available at home.

Yardstick
2 pieces of paper-thin (shirt cardboards piece of work well, as do sections of cardboard cut from pizza boxes
Masking tape
Aluminum foil
Exacto knife
Metric ruler

Cut two pieces of cardboard approximately viii" x 8". One of these will be your pin hole and the other will be your screen.
Very advisedly, cutting a ii cm 10 2 cm square in the center of i of the pieces of paper-thin.
Cutting a 3'' * three''square of aluminum foil. Place the foil over the 2cm * 2cm foursquare and record into place. The record should cover only the edges of the foil and not intrude over the key pigsty. Prick a small pigsty in the eye of the foil with a needle. This is your pinhole.
Cut a 2" slit into lesser eye of both pieces of paper-thin.
Insert the yardstick into the slit you lot made into the pinhole piece and tape into place. The pinhole piece of paper-thin should be perpendicular to the yardstick.
Insert the opposite end of the yardstick into the slit you made on the screen piece of cardboard. This piece of cardboard should be able to move freely up and downwardly the yardstick, remaining perpendicular to the yardstick and parallel to the pinhole piece of cardboard.
Signal the pinhole end on the yardstick at the sunday. Slide the screen piece of cardboard until you see an epitome of the sunday reflected on the screen.
Using a metric ruler, mensurate the diameter of the image in millimeters. Measure the altitude betwixt the 2 pieces of cardboard.
Prepare your ratios as explained in the introduction. Calculate the bore of the sun.
This apparatus tin can also be used to calculate the diameter of the moon.

Terms/Concepts: Ratio and Diameter

References:

Books

Golub, Leon and Jay Thou. Pasachoff. Nearest Star: The Surprising Science of Our Sun Harvard University Press (2002)

Simon, Seymore: The Lord's day. Harper Collins (1989)

Websites

Stanford University Solar Center: Solar News

http://solar-center.stanford.edu

St. Andrew's: Aristarchus of Samos (This is an excellent biography of the Greek mathematician who first calculated the sunday's bore)

http://www-groups.dcs.st-andrews.ac.united kingdom/~history/Biographies/Aristarchus.html

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