Question

Light travels at 3.0 x 105 km/s. The sun is 1.5 x 108 km from Earth. How long does it take for the sun's light to reach Earth?

Answer 1

it takes 8 mins and 20 secs for light to travel to earth

Answer 2

It takes 8 minutes and 20 seconds for the light to travel this distance

Explanation:

Velocity is calculated as:

V= d/t (1)

Where d is distance and t is time. As we want to find time t we must simplify (1) for t

t= d/V (2)

We replacethe values given:

t=d/V=1.5*10^8/3.0*10^5=5*10^3 = 500 seconds

As there are 60 seconds in a minute we find

minutes = 500/60 = 50/6 = 25/3 = 8 2/3 or 8 minutes 20 seconds