An astronaut is looking down on earth's surface from a space shuttle at an altitude of 400 ~km . Assuming that the astronaut's pupil diameter is 5 ~mm and the wavelength of visible light is 500 ~nm , the astronaut will be able to resolve linear objects of the size about

Step-by-step solution

The resolving power of the eye is given by R=1.22 b D where is the wavelength of light, b is the diameter of the eye lens and D is the distance from the lens at which light is focused. aligned & D=400 ~km =400000 ~m , d=5 ~mm =5 10⁻³ ~m & =500 ~nm =500 10⁻⁹ ~m & R=1.22 500 10⁻⁹ 4 10^5 5 10⁻³ =48.8 50 ~m . aligned