Question

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3. Light from the sun reaches Earth in 8.3 minutes. The speed of light is 3 x 108 m/s. How far is the Earth
from the Sun?

Answer 1

Set up a unit conversion problem, arrange units to convert minutes to seconds, then cancel all time units.

8.3 minutes x (60 seconds/1 minute) x ( 3.00x10^8 meters/1 second) = 149,400,000,000 meters

Since the time is the term with the fewest number of significant figures (2), your answer should only be expressed with two sig figs as well.

1.5x10^11 m