Final answer:
In the context of Special Relativity, an alien spacecraft travelling at half the speed of light would observe the length of a 100-yard football field to contract to approximately 79.39 meters due to length contraction.
Step-by-step explanation:
The question involves the concept of length contraction, a phenomenon from Einstein's theory of Special Relativity, observed when an object moves at a significant fraction of the speed of light (denoted as c). When the alien spacecraft flies over the football stadium at a speed of 0.50c, the proper length of the football field (100 yards) as measured by the crew of the spaceship will appear contracted.
The length contraction formula is
where L is the observed contracted length, L_0 is the proper length, and v is the relative velocity of the length as measured in the stationary frame. To convert 100 yards to meters, we use the conversion that 1 yard = 0.9144 meters, thus 100 yards = 91.44 meters. Applying the length contraction formula, the measured field length L by the crew of the spacecraft would be L =
, which calculates to approximately L = 79.39 meters.