2007-03-27 20:39:52 · 10 answers · asked by Anonymous in Science & Mathematics ➔ Astronomy & Space
Hmm, seems like a reasonably easy math problem. It's about 92.9 million miles to the sun. If we're talking earth based planes, the fastest is officially the SR-71 Blackbird which goes (again, officially, who knows how fast it "really" goes) mach 3.0, which is the speed of sound times 3. At sea level, the speed of sound is 761.2 MPH, times 3 is 2283.6 MPH. Dividing 92.9 million miles by 2283.6, gets us 40, 681.38 hours. Divide by 24 = 1,695 days roughly. Assuming infinite fuel, and constant speed of course.
If we're going space based systems, the US Space Shuttle is pretty fast and probably about as fast as any other system (once in space and there's no air resistance, differences in speed I would guess become less relevant.) The Shuttle goes 17,500 MPH when in low earth orbit. It could go faster than that though, since it could continue to accelerate forward out of orbit without any resistance to contend with. But let's just use that rate...as if it broke orbit in the direction of the sun going that speed and then stopped accelerating. (we also would have to ignore the gravity of the sun for this problem since it would pull the shuttle faster and faster towards it. Someone with Physics and Calculus could determine the rate of gravity and acceleration, but I'm not going to do it.)
92.9 million/ 17,500 = 5308.6 hours = 221 days.
2007-03-27 20:59:25 · answer #1 · answered by Robert L 2 · 11⤊ 0⤋
An aircraft can't fly beyond the earth's atmosphere. I think this is what the teacher expects as an answer. If the word spacecraft was used instead of aircraft, then it would be different and as some of the answerers pointed out, no spacecraft would do the total journey under full power since it would be next to impossible to carry the fuel needed. So, a free fall would be used and as it nears the Sun, the gravitational pull will anyway accelerate the craft considerably and will speed up the voyage!
2007-03-27 21:44:32 · answer #2 · answered by Swamy 7 · 3⤊ 4⤋
An SR-71, which can travel 2000 miles an hour, would, if it could fly directly to the sun (which it can't, for a number of reasons), would go 46,000 hours, or about six years, to do so.
2007-03-27 20:45:21 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 1⤋
It won't really matter. Once rocket shoots it out there its really almost freefall around planets, slingshot using gravity of other planet around the Sun. So it won't be straight into the Sun. It will circle around the sun may be few times and close in by shrinking its orbit.
2007-03-27 21:10:32 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 2⤋
No, actually, if you were to magically accelerate to near the speed of light, it would take you a little over 8 minutes to reach the surface of the sun.
2007-03-28 02:40:23 · answer #5 · answered by misoma5 7 · 3⤊ 3⤋
2 moths
2013-12-05 08:56:45 · answer #6 · answered by Russell 1 · 0⤊ 3⤋
i don't know how long...but if fuel is one of the ?s...then why can't we take it from the sun itself? for sure there's a lot in store...
2014-01-01 11:37:10 · answer #7 · answered by ? 1 · 1⤊ 2⤋
i am sorry to tell you that you can not reach he sun with our technology today, so no time to give
but to get the calculation time= distance/speed
the fastest passenger speed was concord 2.2 mac you have to get the distance from earth to sun , and here you go .
pls take some water with you it is hot
2007-03-27 20:53:43 · answer #8 · answered by imad 1 · 1⤊ 6⤋
The fastest speed there is ,is at the speed of light, although scientists don't know how to make a space shuttle go that fast at the moment.
But if they did, it would take you 8 seconds.
2007-03-27 23:59:29 · answer #9 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 11⤋
btedvvfn
2013-10-28 14:42:08 · answer #10 · answered by Nancy 1 · 0⤊ 2⤋