Measuring the moon’s orbit. A handheld digital camera was used to photograph the moon’s orbit and the pictures used to measure the angular size (in pixels) of the moon at various distances (heights) above the horizon (American Journal of Physics, April 2014). The photographer wanted to predict the moon’s size based on the moon’s distance above the horizon using simple linear regression.

a. In this study, identify the dependent and independent variables.

b. Explain why a probabilistic model is more appropriate than a deterministic model.

c. Write the equation of the straight-line, probabilistic model.