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 2.5 years
about 2.5 years
about 1 year
To calculate the time it would take for the spaceship to reach Mars, let's first determine the distance to Mars using the information provided.
The closest distance to Mars is about 140 times farther than the distance to the Moon:
140 (times) * 386,400 km (distance to Moon) = 54,096,000 km (distance to Mars at its closest)
Now, if the spaceship takes 3 days to travel 386,400 km to the Moon, we can calculate it's average speed:
Speed = Distance / Time
Speed = 386,400 km / 3 days
To get the speed in km per day, we will keep the distance in kilometers and convert the time to days:
Speed = 386,400 km / 3 days ≈ 128,800 km/day
Now, let's calculate the time it would take to travel to Mars using this average speed:
Time = Distance / Speed
Time = 54,096,000 km / 128,800 km/day
Now, we calculate the time in days:
Time ≈ 420 days
To convert days into years, we divide by 365.25 (accounting for leap years):
Time ≈ 420 days / 365.25 days/year ≈ 1.15 years
The closest answer to the question would be about 1 year.