On a journey to the Alpha Centauri star system, a space probe travels a distance of 4.12×1016 meters in 1.73×1010 seconds. Find its average speed in meters per second and how long did the journey take in light years?

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Answer 1 · 2016-04-04T17:31:55

Light year is a distance unit. At the specified speed, the journey would take 540 years, nearly.

The average speed is #(4.12 E+16)/(1.73 E+10)# meter/s =2.38 E+03 km/s.

The distance of Alpha Centauri is about 4.3 light years= 2.7 E+05 AU = 4.05 E+13 km.

The time for journey = #(distance)/(speed) = #4.05 E+13/2.38 E+03 =1.70 E+10# seconds
seconds = 5.4 E+02 years, nearly.

Depending on the limits of number of sd (2 or 3) in the data, the answer is rounded to 2-sd only, for reliability....
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