New York City is located about [tex]40^\circ[/tex] north of the equator. If Earth's radius is about 4000 miles, approximately how many miles south would a plane need to fly from New York City to reach the equator?

To reach the equator from New York City, located at 40° north, a plane would have to fly approximately 2760 miles south, calculated by multiplying 40 degrees by the miles per degree of latitude, which is approximately 69 miles.

Explanation:

New York City is located at approximately 40° north of the equator. To calculate the distance from New York City to the equator in miles, we can use the fact that one degree of latitude is approximately equal to 69 miles at Earth's surface. Thus, we can multiply the number of degrees New York City is from the equator by the miles per degree of latitude.

Using this method:

Multiply the latitude (in degrees) of New York City by the miles per latitude degree. 40 degrees × 69 miles per degree = 2760 miles
Therefore, a plane would have to fly approximately 2760 miles south to reach the equator from New York City.

codiepienagoya codiepienagoya · Answer 2 · 2024-08-23T03:44:43-04:00

Answer:

The answer is "2793 miles"

Step-by-step explanation:

In this firstly we convert degrees to radians, which can be defined as follows:

[tex]\to \theta =\frac{40^{\circ} \times \pi }{180^{\circ}}[/tex]

[tex]=\frac{ 2\pi }{9}[/tex]

Now calculating the distance:

[tex]=\frac{2\pi }{9} \times 4000\\\\= \frac{8000 \pi }{9}[/tex]

[tex]=\frac{8000\times 3.14 }{9}\\\\ = \frac{25120}{9}\\\\=2793 \ miles[/tex]