The distance between the earth and the sun is 1.496 x 10 17 μm. How long (in mins) will it take for light to go from the sun to earth?

Here it says, the distance between the Earth and the sun is 1.496 times 10 to the 17 micrometers. How long in minutes will it take for light to go from the sun to earth? Alright. So all they're giving us initially is micrometers, and we know that units of length have to do with wavelength. So we're gonna have to use wavelength in some way. Realize that we're accustomed to using wavelength in terms of meters, so let's do that first. So we have here 1.496 times 10 to the 17 micrometers. We're gonna change micrometers into meters, so 1 micro is equal to 10 to the negative 6 meters. Next, what we need to realize is they want us to find time in minutes. Realize where do we see any units for for time? Well, we see it with speed of light, which remember is 3.00 times 10 to the 8 meters per one second. So So we're gonna incorporate speed of light. Now that we've isolated seconds, just change seconds into minutes. So here we're gonna say that 1 minute is equal to 60 seconds. So at the end what we're gonna get as our answer is 8.311 minutes. Here our answer has 4 sig figs because our distance also has 4 sig figs in terms of 1.496. So it would take 8.311 minutes for light to travel from the sun to earth.

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9. Quantum Mechanics

Speed of Light

General Chemistry

9. Quantum Mechanics

Speed of Light

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Multiple Choice

The distance between the earth and the sun is 1.496 x 10¹⁷ μm. How long (in mins) will it take for light to go from the sun to earth?

5.192 min

11.524 min

8.311 min

7.968 min

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Verified step by step guidance

First, understand that the speed of light in a vacuum is approximately 299,792,458 meters per second (m/s).

Convert the distance from micrometers (μm) to meters (m). Since 1 meter is 1,000,000 micrometers, divide the given distance by 1,000,000 to convert it to meters.

Calculate the time it takes for light to travel from the sun to the earth using the formula: time = distance / speed. Use the converted distance in meters and the speed of light in m/s.

Convert the time from seconds to minutes by dividing the time in seconds by 60, since there are 60 seconds in a minute.

Review the options provided and compare them to your calculated time in minutes to determine the correct answer.

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The distance between the earth and the sun is 1.496 x 1017 μm. How long (in mins) will it take for light to go from the sun to earth?

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The distance between the earth and the sun is 1.496 x 10¹⁷ μm. How long (in mins) will it take for light to go from the sun to earth?