Question

Conversations with astronauts on lunar walks had an echo that was used to estimate the distance to the Moon. The sound spoken by the person on Earth was transformed into a radio signal sent to the Moon, and transformed back into sound on a speaker inside the astronaut’s space suit. This sound was picked up by the microphone in the space suit (intended for the astronaut’s voice) and sent back to Earth as a radio echo of sorts. If the round-trip time was 2.15 s, what was the approximate distance to the Moon, neglecting any delays in the electronics?

Answer 1

Answer:

d ≈ 320000 km

Explanation:

Echoes occurs as a result of the bouncing back of sound waves as it impinges on an obstacle. Since the echo covers two distances (i.e forth and back) the distance is written as 2d.

Velocity of radio waves is taken as the speed of light = $3*10^{8}m/s^{2}$

time =2.15s

DISTANCE = VELOCITY *TIME

2d=vt

$d=\frac{vt}{2}$

$d=\frac{3*10^{8}*2.15}{2}$

    d= 322500000m

Distance to the moon is approximately 320000km