The brightest star in our sky is Sirius which is 51700000000

The brightest star in our sky is Sirius, which is 51,700,000,000,000 miles away from earth. The speed of light is approximately 299,329.8 kilometers per second. Determine how long it will take light leaving earth to reach Sirius. round your answer to the nearest tenth of a year. Use 365 days = 1 Year. Here is a story problem we have and I cannot figure this out can you? Thanks

Solution

Change the kilometers per second to miles per second by dividing be 1.6
to get 187981.125 miles per second:
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Divide the distance Sirius is from the earth by 187981.125 to get
276350700.8 seconds
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Calculate the number of seconds in a year as follows:
60*60*24*(365) = 31536000 seconds in a year
---------------
Divide that bigger number of seconds by the smaller number to
get 870.63..years

The brightest star in our sky is Sirius, which is 51,700,000,000,000 miles away from earth. The speed of light is approximately 299,329.8 kilometers per second.

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