Wednesday, February 8, 2012

How long for light to travel from Mars to Earth?

Assume that Earth and Mars both have perfectly circular orbits centered on the Sun.



Light takes 8.3 minutes to travel from Earth to the Sun. How long does it take for light to travel from Mars to Earth when Mars is located at its minimum and maximum distance?



Really stumped!How long for light to travel from Mars to Earth?Simply find the closest and farthest distance Mars is from Earth (in miles), and then divide by 670,000,000 (speed of light in mph), and then multiply times 60 to find how many minutes it would take (or multiply by 60 again to find out how many seconds).



Example:



1 AU (93 million mi): 93,000,000 miles divided by the speed of light (670,000,000 mph) equals .139 hours, or 8.32 minutes, or 500 seconds.



The rest is up to you. It takes just 10 seconds to find the answer. I don't see how you can be "stumped".How long for light to travel from Mars to Earth?You're "stumped??"



What exactly have you tried typing into Google so far?

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