Question

The moon forms a right triangle with the Earth and the sun during one of its phases, as shown below

http://www.photoshop.com/users/doctorwho15/assets/e59cc76ea4e24f4fad6c80a51e8ff06e

A scientist measures the angle x and the distance y between the Earth and the sun. Using complete sentences, explain how the scientist can use only these two measurements to calculate the distance between the moon and the sun

Answer 1

I assume you know SOH CAH TOA (sin cos tan)?
As you can see, y is the side opposite to x. And we want to find the hypotenuse to the triangle. That means we need a relationship between the opposite side(O), hypotenuse(H), and angle.

Answer 2

I'll leave the rest to you

Answer 3

i do know about Sin cos and tan but am terrible, can you give more detail. what i see though is that y is in adjacent and x is in the hypothnuse. is that right? so it would be cos wich is adjacent/hypothenuse

Answer 4

Ok, no problem. y is opposite to the angle, isn't it? It's not touching the angle at all, but "faces" it instead.

Answer 5

oh so its opposite not adjacent, i always am bad at finding those

Answer 6

so it would be sine instead of cos

Answer 7

haha, well now you know :)
yep

Answer 8

Think you can form an equation with that? I think that would be the easiest way to explain as the question asks.

Answer 9

so the equation is sin x opposite/hypotenuse

Answer 10

yep, sin x = y / hypotenuse

Answer 11

can you help me with another one?

Answer 12

im gonna post it