The nearest star is Alpha Centauri, at a distance of 4.3 light years from earth...

Question

A light year is the distance that light travles in a year (365 days). How far away is Alpha Centauri in kilometers from earth?

c = 3.00 X 10⁸ m/s

Answer 1

To answer this question, first change 4.3 years to seconds. 4.3 years x 365 days per year x 24 hours per day x 60 minutes per hour x 60 seconds per minute = 135,604,800 seconds.

Then I would convert 3.00 x 10⁸ m/s to km/s by dividing by 1000. This will equal 300,000 km/s.

Then multiply speed times time to determine distance.

135,604,800 seconds x 300,000 km/s = 4.07 x 10¹³ km.