alpha centauri is 4.2 light years away. how many years would it take to get there driving 80 mph?

Answer 1

Conversions are crucial here.

There are 9.4605284e15 meters in a light-year, so to find the distance, multiply that by 4.2

The velocity, I converted to 35.8 m/s, because these are basic units.

using the equation Distance = Rate x Time, I find that it would take 1.11e15 seconds, so I convert it to years and get:

3.08x10^11 years

Answer 2

35.2 million years.

The speed of light travels at 3 x 10^8 m/sec in a vacuum. Since there are 1,609 meters in a mile and 60 x 60 x 24 x 365.25 = 31,557,600 seconds in a year, this means there are 5,882,695,061,000 miles (5.88 x 10^12) in a lightyear. So 4.2 lightyears divided by 80 miles per hour gives us 3.09 x 10^11 hours which is 35.2 million years.

Answer 3

This is really big numbers, so bear with me. The easy answer is a really, really long time.

I use metric numbers, because it eases the calculation. Light travels 3x10^10 cm/sec. A year is 3.1x10^7 seconds, so
one light year is 9.3x10^17 cm in length. 4.2 light years would be about 3.9x10^18cm. Driving at 80mph translates to 1.26x10^7cm per hour. Dividing the distance (3.9x10^18cm) by the speed (1.26x10^7cm/hour) yields about 3x10^11 hours.
There are 8.76x10^3 hours per year. So dividing hours by hours per year, you get 3.42x10^7 years, or 34,200,000 years.

Answer 4

Hi. You have your answer, but it would take a jumbo jet many years to reach the Sun. Over 17 at 600 MPH.

Answer 5

light travels ~ 5,865,696,000,000 miles a year so:
5,865,696,000,000 * 4.2=
24,635,923,200,000 miles/80mph=
307,949,040,000 hours/24=
12,831,210,000 days/365=
35154000 years/1000=
35154 millennia.