Driving To The Sun
Explanation:
How long would it take to drive to the Sun?
Brittany, age 7, and D.J., age 12,
ponder this question over dinner one evening.
James, also age 7, suggests taking a really fast racing car while
Christopher, age 4, eagerly agrees.
Jerry, a really old guy who is used to estimating driving time
on family trips based on distance divided by speed, offers
to do the numbers.
"Let's see ...
the Sun is 93 million miles away.
So, if we drove 93 miles per hour the trip would only take us 1 million
hours."
How long is 1 million hours?
One year is 365 days times 24 hours per day, or 8,760 hours.
One hundred years would be 876,000
hours, still a little short of the 1 million hour drive time --
so the Sun is really quite far away.
Christopher is not impressed, but as he grows older he will be.
You've got to be impressed by something that's 93 million miles
away and still hurts your eyes when
you look at it!
Authors & editors:
Robert Nemiroff
(MTU) &
Jerry Bonnell
(USRA)
NASA Web Site Statements, Warnings,
and Disclaimers
NASA Official: Jay Norris.
Specific
rights apply.
A service of:
LHEA at
NASA /
GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
