Question

The planet Mars takes 599.01 days longer than Mercury to orbit the sun. In all, the Mars orbit takes 686 Write and solve an equation to find about how long it take Mercury to orbit the sun.

Answer 1

To find out how long it takes for Mercury to orbit the sun, set up an equation x + 599.01 = 686 and solve for x.

Step-by-step explanation:

To find out how long it takes for Mercury to orbit the sun, we can assume that it takes x days for Mercury to orbit the sun. Since Mars takes 599.01 days longer than Mercury, the time it takes for Mars to orbit the sun is x + 599.01 days. We are given that the total time for Mars to orbit the sun is 686 Earth days. Setting up an equation, we have x + 599.01 = 686. Solving for x, we subtract 599.01 from both sides to get x = 686 - 599.01 = 86.99.

Therefore, it takes approximately 86.99 Earth days for Mercury to orbit the sun.