Time to Pluto traveling at speed of sound?

Answer 1

To some extent, that's going to depend on where you start from.

Since you're talking about the speed of light and the Sun is the only nearby

source of light, let's say that the trip starts at the Sun.

Pluto's orbit is very eccentric compared to the other planets. Sometimes it's

a lot closer to the sun than it is at other times.

Depending on how far Pluto happens to be from the Sun, it takes light from

the Sun between 4.1 hours and 6.8 hours to get to Pluto.

Answer 2

Earth's average distance from the sun = 1.496 x 1011 meters

Pluto's average distance from the sun = 5.910 x 1012 meters

! Minimum ! distance from Earth to Pluto occurs when they're lined up:

(5.910 x 1012) - (0.1496 x 1012) = 5.760 x 1012 meters

Speed of sound = 343 meters/sec

Time = (5.760 x 1012) / (3.43 x 102) = 1.6794 x 1010 seconds

= approx. 194,363 days = 532.5 years ! Minimum !

= about the time it takes Pluto to revolve in its orbit 2 and 1/7th times.

Answer 3

The distance to Pluto on average 5.7 billion kilometers or 38.5 AU.

the speed of sound is 340.29 m/s

so at the speed of sound it would take 4,652,894 hours to reach Pluto.

4652894/24 = 193,870 days (turning the number of hours into days)

365/193870 = 531 years (turning the number of days into years)

Answer 4

Pluto's orbit is about 36 billion kilometers long (about 22 billion miles), while its distance from the Sun varies between 4.4 and 7.4 billion kilometers from the Sun. Its orbital speed is only about 4.67 km/sec (about 10,440 mph) compared to 29.78 km/sec for Earth. At that speed, it takes Pluto about 248 Earth years to make one complete revolution around the Sun. Since its discovery in 1930, Pluto has only traveled a little over a third of its way around the Sun.

Answer 5

Like any other trip, that would depend on where you start, and what route you take.

Starting at the sun, and traveling in a straight line (since you're light, after all),

it would take between 4hours 10minutes and 6hours 48minutes, depending on

exactly which part of Pluto's orbit the planet is at.

(Pluto has a weird orbit ... one in which the sun is way off-center ... so

the distance changes significantly.)

If you started at the Earth, it wouldn't be that much different ... somewhere

between 81/3 minutes shorter to 81/3 minutes longer, depending on exactly

which part of the Earth's orbit WE'RE at.

Answer 6

It would take you 4 hours to get to Pluto at the speed of light.

Answer 7

Pluto's speed around the sun - also known as it's orbital velocity - is equal to 4.7 km/s. This is equal to 16,920 km/h, or 10,514 mi/h.

Answer 8

Depends entirely how much faster than the speed of light.