A Sense of Proportion: Saturn is about 60,000 km in radius, and its rings are only about 0.01 km thick with ripples 100m high. Design a really big model with Saturn 60 inches in radius (10 feet in diameter). How thick must the rings be in your model and how high can the ripples be

The thickness of ring in model is 0.00001 inch and the height of ring is 0.0001 inch.

Explanation:

The radius of Saturn = 60000 km

The thickness of rings = 0.01 km

The height of ring ripples = 100 m or 0.1 km

Now design a new model with a radius of 60 inches.

Therefore, the radius of Saturn (600000 km) = radius of the model (60 inches)

Here, one inch of the model will be equal to 1000 km of Saturn.

1 km of Saturn = 0.001 inch of model

Thickness of ring = 0.01 km

Therefore, thickness of ring in model = 0.01 x 0.001 = 0.00001 inch

The height of Saturn ring = 0.1 km

Therefore, the height of ring in model = 0.1 x 0.001 = 0.0001 inch.