Question 1
A suitable site for the landing of a spacecraft on the planet Mars is identified at a point, A. The shortest time from sunrise to sunset at point A must be found.
Radians should be used throughout this question. All values given in the question should be treated as exact.
Mars completes a full orbit of the Sun in 669 Martian days, which is one Martian year.
On day t, where , the length of time, in hours, from the start of the Martian day until sunrise at point A can be modelled by a function, R(t), where
The graph of R is shown for one Martian year.
Question (a)
(a)
Show that the maximum value of , correct to three significant figures.
[ 3 ]
Question (b)
(b)
Find the minimum value of .
[ 1 ]
Question (c)
(c)
Hence show that a=1.6, correct to two significant figures.
[ 2 ]