Problem 56323. Air Mass to Star for an Observer at Mean Sea Level

Air mass is a measure of how much atmosphere light from a source above the atmosphere (eg sun, planet, star) has to travel through to reach an observation point on the Earth surface. It’s measured as a ratio of the amount of atmosphere relative to the amount of atmosphere for an overhead (nadir) line-of-sight.
To calculate air mass, divide the value of 1 by the cosine of the zenith angle.
The elevation angle of a star is given with respect to the local astronomical horizon:
Write a function to calculate the Air Mass a star's light passes through from the line-of-sight elevation angle in degrees. Allow the function to compute air mass for an array of line-of-sight elevation angles.
Solve

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27.52% Correct | 72.48% Incorrect
Last Solution submitted on Jan 27, 2026

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