Example 3 (National I) In the right triangular prism , all vertices lie on the same sphere. If , then the surface area of this sphere is
Solution
As shown in Figure 1, take the midpoint of , connect and extend it to such that . It is easy to prove that and are both right triangles. Therefore, quadrilateral can be inscribed in a circle. Thus, we can use quadrilateral as the base to complete the right prism into a right prism inscribed in a sphere. From the given conditions, it is easy to find that the body diagonal . Therefore, the radius of the circumscribed sphere is , so the surface area of the sphere . The answer should be .
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