Sunlight takes about 8 minutes to reach Earth. A space probe is stationed at a point halfway between the…
Sunlight takes about 8 minutes to reach Earth. A space probe is stationed at a point halfway between the Earth and the Sun. How long will a radio signal, traveling at the speed of light, take to travel from this probe to Earth?
2 minutes
4 minutes
8 minutes
16 minutes
Solution
Since the probe is at half the distance from Earth to the Sun, signals moving at the speed of light will take half the time, which is $8 / 2 = 4$ minutes.