Question

If light takes 8 minutes to travel from the sun to Earth and 5 hours to travel from the sun to Pluto, what is the distance from the sun to Pluto?

Answer 1

`z = 5.94` x `10^12` m or 5.94 Billion km.

Explanation:

Light takes about 5.5 hours to reach Pluto from the Sun.

If you know the time that light takes to reach certain object, you can deduce the distance to that object using the following formula.

`z = c * t`

z is the distance.
c is the speed of light.
t is the time that light takes to reach certain object.

so,

t = 5.5 hours = 5.5 x 60 x 60 = 19,800 seconds.

`z = c * t`

`z = 3` x `10^8 * 19800`

`z = 5.94` x `10^12` m or 5.94 Billion km.