Question

The distance between Earth and the sun is roughly 150,000,000 km. If it takes sunlight 8.3 min to reach Earth, what is the speed of light (in m/s)?

Answer 1

Answer:

Speed of light, $v=3.01\times 10^8\ m/s$

Explanation:

It is given that,

The distance between Earth and the sun is roughly 150,000,000 km, $d=150,000,000\ km=15\times 10^{10}\ m$

Time taken by the sunlight to reach the Earth, t = 8.3 min = 498 sec

Let v is the speed of light. It can be calculated as the total distance covered divided by total time taken. Mathematically, it is given by :

$v=\dfrac{d}{t}$

$v=\dfrac{15\times 10^{10}\ m}{498\ s}$

$v=3.01\times 10^8\ m/s$

So, the speed of light is $3.01\times 10^8\ m/s$. Hence, this is the required solution.