Question

The team monitoring a space probe exploring the outer solar system fi nds that radio transmissions from the probe take 2.53 hours to reach earth. how distant (in meters) is the probe

Answer 1

If you can observe, we are only given one parameter here which is the time. If you want to compute for the distance, you have to know the speed. The hint here is the 'radio transmissions'. All the information gathered by the probe from the space, is sent back to the Earth by electromagnetic waves. Hence, we must know the speed of electromagnetic waves. Since they are as fast as light, their speed is equal to 300 million meters per second. Then, we can finally determine the distance.

d = speed*time
d = (300×10⁶ m/s)(2.53 hours)

Since 1 hour = 3,600 seconds,

d = (300×10⁶ m/s)(2.53 hours)(3,600 seconds/1 hour)
d = 2.73×10⁻¹² m