Before continuing we need a little more information about the angle factor given in the formula above. It turns out that the angle factor is equal to the cosine of the angle that the light strikes the surface as measured from perpendicular. In this question, the angle factor will be calculated for you. However, it is still informative to see how that factor is calculated for an observer at a given latitude and with a given tilt of the planet.
Set the tilt of the planet to be 25 degrees.
a) What is the length of day during the winter solstice for this planet?
b) What is the length of day during the summer solstice for this planet?
c) The angle factor for the winter solstice is cos(45 + 25) = 0.342. What is the total amount of sunlight-hours on the winter solstice for this planet? (Be sure to show your work on all of the following questions.)
d) For the summer solstice the angle factor is equal to cos(45 - 25) = 0.940. What is the total amount of sunlight-hours for the summer solstice?
e) What is the ratio of the sunlight-hours for the summer solstice to the winter solstice (divide the larger number by the smaller). You should get an answer that is larger than 1.06 (the ratio due to the changing planet-Sun distance).