Question

A space ship is carrying a rover to Mars and is traveling at 8687 miles per hour. To the nearest hundredth, how many kilometers per second is the spaceship traveling? (Hint: 1 mi = 1.6 km)

a) 3.89 km/s
b) 4.56 km/s
c) 6.14 km/s
d) 10.94 km/s

Answer 1

To convert the spaceship's speed to kilometers per second, multiply 8687 miles per hour by 1.6 to get kilometers per hour, then divide by 3600 to get kilometers per second, which is approximately 3.86 km/s to the nearest hundredth.

Step-by-step explanation:

To convert the space ship's speed from miles per hour to kilometers per second, we first convert the speed to kilometers per hour and then convert that result to kilometers per second. The spaceship is traveling at 8687 miles per hour. Using the conversion factor that 1 mi = 1.6 km, we perform the following calculation:

• 8687 mi/h × 1.6 km/mi = 13899.2 km/h
• Now, convert kilometers per hour to kilometers per second.
• 13899.2 km/h ÷ (60 min/h) ÷ (60 s/min) = 3.861 km/s

To the nearest hundredth, the spaceship is traveling at 3.86 kilometers per second.