Estimate Diameter of Moon Using Pencil Measurements

  • Context: High School 
  • Thread starter Thread starter k_yup
  • Start date Start date
Join the discussion
Ask a follow-up here, or get your own question answered by working scientists, mathematicians and engineers — people, not an autocomplete.
Real named experts · corrections over time · the nuance an AI answer skips
1 reply · 2K views
k_yup
Messages
4
Reaction score
0
im new to the physics world and know this is probably an easy problem but i don't know where to start

Hold a pencil in front of your eye at a position where its end just blocks out the moon. Make approprite measurements to estimate the diameter of the moon, given that the earth-moon distance is 3.8x10^5km.

i figured that you prob had to measure the end of a pencil which i measured about 1.5 cm which is 1.5x10^-5km but i don't really know what to do from there.
 
Physics news on Phys.org
Your also need to also estimate the distance from your eye to the pencil.
Draw a picture...there are two similar triangles involved