Understanding Our Universe
3rd Edition
ISBN: 9780393614428
Author: PALEN, Stacy, Kay, Laura, Blumenthal, George (george Ray)
Publisher: W.w. Norton & Company,
expand_more
expand_more
format_list_bulleted
Concept explainers
Question
Chapter 1, Problem 39QAP
(a)
To determine
The time required by light to travel from the Sun to Pluto.
(b)
To determine
The problems occurred during conversation between Earth and spacecraft orbiting Pluto.
Expert Solution & Answer
Want to see the full answer?
Check out a sample textbook solution
Students have asked these similar questions
The planet Mercury is closer to the Sun than the Earth is, so it can sometimes come between Earth and Sun. That's called a transit.
A transit is like a failed solar eclipse: In a solar eclipse, the Moon gets between Earth and Sun and blocks all sunlight. In a transit, Mercury blocks only a small fraction of the Sun's light because Mercury isn't close enough to us to completely block our view of the Sun.
We want to calculate by how much the Sun will be dimmed when such a transit occurs, because that's important to know for satellites which are powered by solar panels (shown hovering around the Earth in the image above).
Without Mercury in the way, the radiation intensity that hits the top of the Earth's atmosphere from the Sun is 1,360.8 W/m2
(W stands for Watt, measuring energy transferred per second).
The fraction of this intensity that is blocked by Mercury during a transit is equal to the ratio between the cross-sectional area of Mercury (as seen from Earth) and the…
Suppose you send a probe to land on Mercury, and the probe transmits radio signals to earth at a wavelength of 52.0000 cm. You listen for the probe when Mercury is moving away from Earth at its full orbital velocity of 48 km/s around the Sun. What wavelength (in cm) would you have to tune your radio telescope to detect that signal?
Use the doppler shift formula Note: the speed of light is 3.0 ✕ 105 km/s. Give your answer to at least four decimal places.)
Calculate how long radio communications from the spacecraft will take when it encounters Mars. The furthest distance from Earth to Mars is 2.66 AU. Remember that 1 AU = 1.5 x 1011 m and that light travels at 3 x 108 m/s. So how long will the radio messages take to travel this greatest distance of 2.66 AU?
If two way communication between the Earth and the spacecraft involve a 1 s time lapse before an acknowledging signal is sent by the spacecraft, how long a time is there between sending a command to the spacecraft and receiving a reply?
Chapter 1 Solutions
Understanding Our Universe
Ch. 1.1 - Prob. 1.1CYUCh. 1.2 - Prob. 1.2CYUCh. 1.3 - Prob. 1.3CYUCh. 1 - Prob. 1QAPCh. 1 - Prob. 2QAPCh. 1 - Prob. 3QAPCh. 1 - Prob. 4QAPCh. 1 - Prob. 5QAPCh. 1 - Prob. 6QAPCh. 1 - Prob. 7QAP
Ch. 1 - Prob. 8QAPCh. 1 - Prob. 9QAPCh. 1 - Prob. 10QAPCh. 1 - Prob. 11QAPCh. 1 - Prob. 12QAPCh. 1 - Prob. 13QAPCh. 1 - Prob. 14QAPCh. 1 - Prob. 15QAPCh. 1 - Prob. 16QAPCh. 1 - Prob. 17QAPCh. 1 - Prob. 18QAPCh. 1 - Prob. 19QAPCh. 1 - Prob. 20QAPCh. 1 - Prob. 21QAPCh. 1 - Prob. 22QAPCh. 1 - Prob. 23QAPCh. 1 - Prob. 24QAPCh. 1 - Prob. 25QAPCh. 1 - Prob. 26QAPCh. 1 - Prob. 27QAPCh. 1 - Prob. 28QAPCh. 1 - Prob. 29QAPCh. 1 - Prob. 30QAPCh. 1 - Prob. 31QAPCh. 1 - Prob. 32QAPCh. 1 - Prob. 34QAPCh. 1 - Prob. 35QAPCh. 1 - Prob. 36QAPCh. 1 - Prob. 37QAPCh. 1 - Prob. 38QAPCh. 1 - Prob. 39QAPCh. 1 - Prob. 40QAPCh. 1 - Prob. 41QAPCh. 1 - Prob. 42QAPCh. 1 - Prob. 43QAPCh. 1 - Prob. 44QAPCh. 1 - Prob. 45QAP
Knowledge Booster
Learn more about
Need a deep-dive on the concept behind this application? Look no further. Learn more about this topic, physics and related others by exploring similar questions and additional content below.Similar questions
- Since 1995, hundreds of extrasolar planets have been discovered. There is the exciting possibility that there is life on one or more of these planets. To support life similar to that on the Earth, the planet must have liquid water. For an Earth-like planet orbiting a star like the Sun, this requirement means that the planet must be within a habitable zone of 0.9 AU to 1.4 AU from the star. The semimajor axis of an extrasolar planet is inferred from its period. What range in periods corresponds to the habitable zone for an Earth-like Planet orbiting a Sun-like star?arrow_forwardYou are a rover pilot on the crew of the initial exploration team sent to Kepler 22b,the first extrasolar planet discovered within the habitable zone of a sun-like star. Thescience team recently discovered liquid water on the surface. (Hurrah!) Your rover isat point A on the shore of a circular lake with radius 4 km collecting samples. Thescience team wants to send your rover to a point C diametrically opposite A. Therover can drive around the circumference of the lake at a rate of 4 km per hour andfly over the lake at a rate of 3 km per hour.(a) How long will it take the rover to fly across the lake?(b) How long will it take the rover to drive around the shore of the lake?You could also fly at an angle θ along a chord inside the circular lake, andcomplete the rest of the path driving along the circumference of the lake.(c) Find the length of the chord in terms of θ. How long will it take the drone totraverse the chord?(d) Find the length of the remaining shoreline after the cord in…arrow_forwardSuppose astronomers found evidence of an earth-like planet 20 lightyears away. a) what may be two ethical considerations that one may consider when deciding if humans should travel to this planet? b) how fast would a spaceship need to travel if the roundtrip can no take longer than 40 years for the astronauts? c) how much time will the trip take according to the people on earth?arrow_forward
- Mars is roughly 200 million km (or 140 million miles) away from the Earth. Roughly how long does it take a radio wave (i.e. long-wavelength light) to travel from an astronaut on Mars to their friend here on Earth?arrow_forwardVoyager 2. When the Voyager 2 spacecraft was approaching towards its Neptune encounter in 1989, it was 4.5 × 10° km away from the earth. Its radio transmitter, with which it communicated with us (and we communicated with it), broadcast with a mere 22 Watt of power at the S-band (2.1 GHz). (Your home wi-fi router emits around 2 Watt at 2.4 GHz wi-fi band). Assuming the Voyager transmitter broadcast equally in all directions, (a) What signal intensity was received on the earth? (b) What electric and magnetic field amplitudes were detected? (c) How many 2.1 GHz photons were arriving per second on a radio-receiver antenna with a circular cross-section of diameter 34 meters? Two counter-propagating plane waves (a) Let E(z, t) = E0 cos(kz – wt)â + E, cos(kz + wt)x. Write E(z, t) in simpler form and find the associated magnetic field. (b) For the fields in part (a), find the instantaneous and time-averaged electric and magnetic field energy densities. (c) Let E(z, t) = E, cos(kz – wt)x + E,…arrow_forwardThe Planck time is the unique interval of time that can be built out of G, c, and h. Some physicists think that time intervals shorter than the Planck time have no meaning. Using G = 6.7 x 10-11 kg-1 m3 s-2, c = 3 x 108 m s-1, and h = 6.6 x 10-34 kg m2 s-1, calculate the Planck time, in units of 10-43 s.arrow_forward
- Suppose you send a probe to land on Mercury, and the probe transmits radio signals to earth at a wavelength of 40.0000 cm. You listen for the probe when Mercury is moving away from Earth at its full orbital velocity of 48 km/s around the Sun. What wavelength (in cm) would you have to tune your radio telescope to detect that signal?arrow_forwardThe spacecraft that have landed on Mars send their information to the Earth via radio waves. How long do these waves take to reach the Earth when (a) Mars is at its closest to the Earth? (b) Mars is farthest from the Earth? This time delay is important for NASA when it sends a spacecraft to Mars.arrow_forwardIf we send astronauts to Mars, there will be a time delay anytime we send or receive messages to them here on Earth. Given that Mars is an average of 54.6 million km away from Earth, how long is this time delay for a 2-way 'round-trip' communication - sent to Earth, then back to Mars? (this might be important in emergency situations) answer choices a)About 4 minutes. b)About 30 seconds. c)About 10 seconds. d)About 6 minutes.arrow_forward
- Kepler’s First Law: Elliptical Planetary Orbits: The solar system major planet in the most elliptical solar orbit is little Mercury, which is the closest planet to the Sun. At Perihelion, Mercury’s distance from the Sun (Rp) is 0.31 AU. At Aphelion, Mercury’s distance from the Sun (Ra) is 0.47 AU. The intensity of Sunlight (I) that a planet receives from the Sun is inversely proportional to the square of that planet’s distance from the Sun (R). in other words, I = Constant / R2. Calculate how much more intense the Sunlight received by Mercury is at perihelion (p) than at aphelion (a): Rp2 = Ra2 = Ip / Ia = Ra2 / Rp2 =arrow_forwardThe Curiosity Rover has recently landed on Mars and likes to send Twitter updates on its progress. If a tweet is posted 9 minutes after it was sent, how far is Curiosity from Earth? (Assume there is no network lag.) marrow_forwardThe moon is 1.3 light-seconds away. Imagine you are standing at the Canadian Space Agency headquarters in St. Hubert, Quebec and you bounce a 755 MHz radio signal off the moon (the moon acts like a mirror, reflecting the signal, such that it comes back to you). How long will it take for that radio signal to get back to you on earth? Answer in seconds with one decimal place.arrow_forward
arrow_back_ios
SEE MORE QUESTIONS
arrow_forward_ios
Recommended textbooks for you
Physics for Scientists and Engineers: Foundations...PhysicsISBN:9781133939146Author:Katz, Debora M.Publisher:Cengage Learning
Physics for Scientists and Engineers: Foundations...
Physics
ISBN:9781133939146
Author:Katz, Debora M.
Publisher:Cengage Learning