First i would just like to say this isn;t a school question, i just blow at math. If a spaceship could travel at 10% the speed of light for 20 years how far would that be from earth after such a time?
2007-01-01 22:42:42 · 4 answers · asked by Anonymous in Science & Mathematics ➔ Astronomy & Space
10% of the speed of light for 20 years is equivalent to 100% the speed of light for 2 years.
So the ship is 2 lightyears from earth
A light year is 9,460,730,472,580,800 metres (see source) so it will be 18,921,460,945,161,600 or about 1.89 x 10^16 metres away
(incidentally, 10% of the speed of light is still incredibly fast for a spacecraft! Around 3 x 10^7 metres per second)
2007-01-01 22:45:23 · answer #1 · answered by Tom :: Athier than Thou 6 · 5⤊ 0⤋
10% of c for 20 years is NOT the same as 100% of c for 2 years. Look up Lorentz contraction to find equations to calculation time/space dialation at fast speeds.
2007-01-02 08:37:22 · answer #2 · answered by SteveA8 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Light travels at a speed of roughly 186,000 miles/second, so 10% would be 18,600 miles/second. To figure out how far you could travel in 20 years:
18,600 miles/second * 60 sec/min * 60 min/hr * 24 hr/day * 365.25 day/yr * 20 yr
Its a big ol' number, but it should be correct. Your answer will be in miles. To get your answer in light-years, just divide by 1 light-year, which is about 5.88 trillion miles. You should get about 2 light-years.
If you need your answer in meters, substitute 300,000,000 meters/second for your speed of light, so 10% would be 30,000,000 meters/second. Follow the same equation above, substituting this in for the first part. Your answer will then be in meters. To get your answer in light-years, divide by 9.5 x 10^15 meters. Your final answer will still be about 2 light-years.
2007-01-04 17:35:20 · answer #3 · answered by lil e 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
3E+8m/s *0.1 * 3600*24*365 s = 9.46E+15 m
ie 9460800000000000
2007-01-02 08:13:58 · answer #4 · answered by bily7001 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋