Question

how many minutes does it take for the sun to reach the earth? the distance from the sun to the earth is 93 million mi and the speed of light=3.00x10^8 m/s. report your answer with two significant figures.

Explanation:

Step1: Convert distance to meters

1 mile = 1609.34 m, so 93 million miles ($93\times10^{6}$ miles) is $d = 93\times10^{6}\times1609.34\ m=1.4966862\times 10^{11}\ m$.

Step2: Use the formula $t=\frac{d}{v}$

Given $v = 3.00\times 10^{8}\ m/s$, then $t=\frac{1.4966862\times 10^{11}}{3.00\times 10^{8}}\ s = 498.8954\ s$.

Step3: Convert seconds to minutes

Since 1 minute = 60 s, then $t=\frac{498.8954}{60}\ min\approx 8.3\ min$.

Answer:

8.3