Planet Vacation Let’s suppose you have a car that you can drive in outer space. You decide to take a vacation and drive to each planet in the solar system. The speed limit is 1000 miles per hour. Your job is to figure out how long it will take you to drive to each one of the planets. Copy this table into your lab notebook.
Planet Distance from the sun (km) Distance from the earth (km) Travel Time (hrs) Travel Time (yrs)
Mercury Venus Mars Jupiter Saturn Uranus Neptune Pluto
57,910,000 108,200,000 227,940,000 778,330,000 1,429,400,000 2,870,990,000 4,504,000,000 5,913,520,000
Once you have copied the table, calculate the distance each planet is from the earth. Do this by subtracting each planet’s distance from the sun from the Earth’s distance from the sun. The Earth is 149,600,000 km from the sun. Ignore any negative signs you get in your answer. Distance from the Sun - 149,600,000 km = Distance from Earth Before you can find the travel time, you will now need to convert the speed limit from miles per hour to kilometers per hour. (1 km = 0.621 miles). Find the travel time in hours, then convert the travel time into years. Travel Time (hours) = Distance from Earth / speed For your next vacation, you decide to travel to the two closest stars to Earth, the Sun and Alpha Centauri. Alpha Centauri is 41,220,551,000,000 km from the sun. Find both travel times.