Task 1: A Journey to Earth Every moment of every day, light pours out from the Sun at the center of our solar system and travels to Earth. It does not arrive at Earth instantaneously though; it takes time to get here. Your task is to figure out how long it takes for light to travel from the Sun to Earth.

The formula for the velocity of an object is , where v is the velocity of the object, d is the distance traveled, and t is the time elapsed while that distance is traveled. If you had only this formula to work with, what should your first step be in determining how long it takes for light to reach Earth from the Sun? What additional information do you need to calculate this?

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Solve for the variable you are looking for. Show your work.

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Now search the Internet for the values of the variables you do not know. What are they?

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Using the formula you derived and the values you researched, calculate the time it takes for light to travel from the Sun to Earth.

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Felix Baumgartner is a daredevil famous for breaking the sound barrier during a freefall on October 14, 2012. Aided by a weather balloon, he climbed to a height of 128,100 feet. More than 24 miles in the air, he was so high up that he could see Earth’s curvature. He then jumped out of the capsule that carried him. On the way down, he traveled at an average of 335.92 miles per hour, at one point even going as fast as 720 miles per hour, breaking the record for the highest skydive ever attempted and breaking the sound barrier in the process. Using the formula you derived in part b, how long did it take Baumgartner to reach the ground, in minutes? Be careful about unit conversions, and show your work.

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