Question

A spaceship travels 15 kilometres towards the South. From there, it travels 9 kilometres towards the North. Then it travels 8 kilometres towards the West. How far and in which direction is the spaceship with reference to its starting point?

Answer 1

We will try to solve the question in 2 steps

First Step is to draw the diagram and identify the direction.
From the reference

In this case we can easily identify the direction as “SOUTH WEST”

Focusing on △ACD, we see that it forms a right angled triangle.

In the △ACD,

By use of Pythagoras’s Theorem,

$A{D}^2=A{C}^2+C{D}^2$
$AD=\sqrt{6^2+8^2}$ = 10 km

Hence the current position is placed at 10 km in the South West Direction