Solar System Distances Quick Check 2 of 42 of 4 Items Question A human-operated spaceship reaches the moon in 3 days. The moon is about 386,400 km from Earth. Mars, our closest planetary neighbor, is, at its closest, about 140 times farther away from us than the moon if Mars stays in place. Assuming a very simple model of the solar system, about how long would it take that same spaceship to reach Mars?(1 point) Responses about 7.5 years about 7.5 years about 22.5 years about 22.5 years about 1 year about 1 year about 2.5 years about 2.5 years Skip to navigation
About 2.5 years
To find out how long it would take the spaceship to reach Mars, we need to compare the distance between Earth and Mars to the distance between Earth and the Moon.
According to the information given, Mars is about 140 times farther away from Earth than the Moon. Since the spaceship reaches the Moon in 3 days, we can multiply this time by 140 to estimate the time it would take to reach Mars.
3 days x 140 = 420 days
Therefore, it would take the spaceship about 420 days, or approximately 1 year and 2 months, to reach Mars in this simple model of the solar system.
To find out how long it would take the spaceship to reach Mars, we need to use the given information about the distance between Earth and the moon to find the distance between Earth and Mars.
Since Mars is about 140 times farther away from Earth than the moon, we can calculate the distance between Earth and Mars by multiplying the distance between Earth and the moon (386,400 km) by 140.
Distance between Earth and Mars = 386,400 km * 140 = 54,096,000 km
Now, we can estimate the time it would take the spaceship to travel this distance. The speed of the spaceship is not provided, so we can't give an exact answer. However, we can make a rough estimate based on typical speeds of spacecraft.
If we assume that the spaceship maintains a constant speed and takes the same amount of time to travel the distance between Earth and Mars as it does to travel the distance between Earth and the moon (3 days), then we can set up the following proportion:
Distance between Earth and Mars / Time to reach Mars = Distance between Earth and the moon / Time to reach the moon
54,096,000 km / Time to reach Mars = 386,400 km / 3 days
To find the time to reach Mars, we can cross-multiply and solve for it:
54,096,000 km * 3 days = 386,400 km * Time to reach Mars
162,288,000 km*days = 386,400 km * Time to reach Mars
Time to reach Mars = (162,288,000 km * days) / 386,400 km
Time to reach Mars ≈ 420 days
So, based on this estimate, it would take the same spaceship about 420 days to reach Mars.