times it takes for sun light to reach pluto calculation

[buc4933]

ok i'm pretty sure it takes 320 min or 5.3 hours for sun light to reach pluto. But i dont understand how to show the calculations. light travels at 300,000km per sec and the distance between the sun and pluto is 5,890,000,000km any advice would be great thanks ahead of time

 

[why06]

do: 5,890,000,000km / 300,000km<br /><br />now: you've got the # of seconds.... divide by 60 to get min. and 60 again to get hours.<br /><br />Peice of cake.... IF you have a calculator <img src="/images/icons/wink.gif" /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <div>________________________________________ <br /></div><div><ul><li><font color="#008000"><em>your move...</em></font></li></ul></div> </div>

 

[buc4933]

thanks... ya i have a calculator but math is not my strongest subject.... i dont know why i'm taking astronomy them.....thank you again

 

[5billionyearsearlier]

You know pluto isn't a planet now right ? <br /><br />http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/08/060824-pluto-planet.html

 

[MeteorWayne]

Who cares, Pluto is one of the largest KBO's and the largest Plutino. It's still special <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#000080"><em><font color="#000000">But the Krell forgot one thing John. Monsters. Monsters from the Id.</font></em> </font></p><p><font color="#000080">I really, really, really, really miss the "first unread post" function</font><font color="#000080"> </font></p> </div>

 

[tropicalzone]

easier yet is the fact that pluto is 40AU from earth so you take 8 min times 40 =320 min or 5hrs 20 min to reach pluto

 

[SpeedFreek]

Im using a planetarium program called Celestia which is telling me that Plutos current distance from the Sun is 31.278 AU and the light travel time is 4 hours 20 mins 7.7s<br /><br />(Plutos orbit takes it between 29 AU and 49 AU from the Sun) <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#ff0000">_______________________________________________<br /></font><font size="2"><em>SpeedFreek</em></font> </p> </div>

 

[tropicalzone]

sorry i was using avg distance plutos orbit is very elliptical

 

[MeteorWayne]

Also for today, earth-sun distance is 0.9939467 AU and light time is 8 minutes, 16 seconds. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#000080"><em><font color="#000000">But the Krell forgot one thing John. Monsters. Monsters from the Id.</font></em> </font></p><p><font color="#000080">I really, really, really, really miss the "first unread post" function</font><font color="#000080"> </font></p> </div>

 

[chesh]

It's rather more complicated than that. Pluto is in a very eccentric orbit compared to most planets.<br /><br />Aphelion is: 7,375,928,000 km.<br /><br />Perihelion is: 4,436,825,000 km. <br /><br />So the time it takes is those distances divided by light speed at 299,792.458 km/sec. or (pulling out me best calculator) 24,603 secs.(6 hrs. 50 mins.) at aphelion, and 14,800 secs. (4 hrs. 6.8 min..) at perihelion.<br /><br />The real question becomes, exactly where is Pluto at the present date from the sun? For that is required a complicated astronomical program, which only our astronomically trained mates have.<br /><br />So one can safely state that Pluto receives photons from the sun between 6 hours and 50 mins. and 4 hours and 6 mins. What the current time is in Pluto's long orbit, I haven't the foggiest.<br />

 

[chesh]

Hmm. Nicely done. It means that Pluto is very near the perihelion distance of 4 hrs. and 6 minutes. So Pluto is very near perihelion and thus should be easier to see by telescope, namely, the Hubble. That should allow some interesting observations as Pluto will not be this close again for about another 240 years.

 

[MeteorWayne]

As of right now, distance to Pluto is:<br /><br />31.3081286 AU (4684 million km)<br /><br />Light time is:<br /><br />4h 20m 22.9s <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#000080"><em><font color="#000000">But the Krell forgot one thing John. Monsters. Monsters from the Id.</font></em> </font></p><p><font color="#000080">I really, really, really, really miss the "first unread post" function</font><font color="#000080"> </font></p> </div>

 

[CalliArcale]

<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>Hmm. Nicely done. It means that Pluto is very near the perihelion distance of 4 hrs. and 6 minutes. So Pluto is very near perihelion and thus should be easier to see by telescope, namely, the Hubble. That should allow some interesting observations as Pluto will not be this close again for about another 240 years.<p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br /><br />You are quite correct! Pluto passed perihelion a few years ago; this is why there was so much urgency for the New Horizons mission, because as you point out, Pluto will only get farther away during our lifetimes. Even as far from the Sun as it is, being further away means a lot -- Pluto should be considerably colder at aphelion than at perihelion. If it has an atmosphere, it may freeze and fall to the surface as snow on a seasonal basis. New Horizons, which recently passed Jupiter, will pass Pluto in July of 2015. This is generally considered the last chance to get a look at any atmosphere it may have, and given how difficult it is to reach Pluto (you need to use gravitational assists, so the planets have to be in a favorable alignment -- I'm simplifying that a bit, but you get the idea) this may be the only time Pluto gets visited in our lifetimes. It's just a pity it couldn't be part of Voyager's Grand Tour (another long story).<br /><br />Astronomers are taking advantage of Pluto's relative nearness. It enabled the discovery of Charon thirty years ago, and very recently the discoveries of Nix and Hydra, Pluto's tiny other moons. The Hubble has indeed been used to image Pluto on a number of occasions. Even that powerful instrument, from its vantage point above the Earth's atmosphere, has difficulty. I've attached one of Hubble's direct images of Pluto and Charon.<br /><br />There are better Pluto images, but they were acheived via a sophisticated technique where astronomers very closely observed many transits of Charon across the face of Pluto, enabling them to ma <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><font color="#666699"><em>"People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly . . . timey wimey . . . stuff."</em>  -- The Tenth Doctor, "Blink"</font></p> </div>

 

[vandivx]

<font color="yellow">it revealed that Pluto and Charon have mutally synchronous rotation. Just as our Moon always points the same side towards the Earth, Charon points the same side towards Pluto. But the interesting thing is that Pluto also points one side always towards Charon. So an observer on Pluto would never see Charon rise or set -- it would be fixed in the sky, utterly motionless, going through its phases while the stars wheeled through the sky behind it.</font><br /><br />it would be so easy to have strong religious cult on Pluto then, I mean such coincidence would have to be seen by Plutonians so odd as to decidedly require intervention of Hand of God to achieve such harmony <img src="/images/icons/wink.gif" /><br /><br />perhaps human inventivness will outpace the Pluto's dissapearance into deep space ever farther from the Earth and although it will get farther in coming years we might catch up with it utilizing some new space drive technology, perhaps better and faster than we could have given our current technology even if we took off for it when it was nearest to us or in most propitious position<br /><br />personally if it was up to me, I'd let some third world unfortunates die and put the money that went as handout to them on new mission to Pluto<br /><br />vanDivX <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[CalliArcale]

Most of the urgency has to do with reaching Pluto during its summer. It'll be possible to reach it again later, but some of the science opportunities will have been lost by then. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><font color="#666699"><em>"People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly . . . timey wimey . . . stuff."</em>  -- The Tenth Doctor, "Blink"</font></p> </div>

 

[MeteorWayne]

And as of right now light time is:<br /><br />4h 19m 35.1s<br /><br />As you can see it is past perihelion and moving away from the sun, as we pedal as fast as we can with New Horizons to catch it <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" /><br /><br />New Horizons is still 26 AU's away from Pluto (light time for 1 AU is a bit over 8 minutes) <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#000080"><em><font color="#000000">But the Krell forgot one thing John. Monsters. Monsters from the Id.</font></em> </font></p><p><font color="#000080">I really, really, really, really miss the "first unread post" function</font><font color="#000080"> </font></p> </div>