Question

How far away from the sun, in meters, were the Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft as of January 2, 2009? Research this information using the Internet or any other sources you can find. Then plot the positions of these two spacecraft on the graph you created in Part 2. How far away are they compared to the nearest star? Specifically, at what percent of the distance to the nearest star are the Voyager spacecraft? Write your answer in scientific notation and show all your calculations.

Answer 1

Welcome to OpenStudy !

@iambatman may help you when he comes online

Answer 2

There's a website for this, that tells you the weekly reports of how far it was from the sun

Answer 3

http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/weekly-reports/

Answer 4

All your information can be found here

Answer 5

Ive got the distances and everything I Just need help with the " Specifically, at what percent of the distance to the nearest star are the Voyager spacecraft? Write your answer in scientific notation and show all your calculations." part

Answer 6

Nearest star other than the sun?

Answer 7

That's funny, Proima Centauri is 4.2 light years away

Answer 8

The nearest star is the Alpha Centauri

Answer 9

Proxima*

Answer 10

Yup

Answer 11

That's about 4*10^16 m

Answer 12

- distance voyager missions have travelled

Answer 13

Just divide and multiply by 100 for the percent, it's not even close

Answer 14

Okay. Doing that I get 16 percent. That's correct?

Answer 15

Not sure, how much has it travelled?

Answer 16

That's still a surprising amount, I thought it would be much less, wow.

Answer 17

Voyager 1 was 10,095,000,000 miles (1.6 meters^13) from the sun and Voyager 2 was 8,171,000,000 miles (1.3 ^ 13 meters) from the sun.

Answer 18

Yeah, as I expected you must have done your calculation wrong, it's not even close to 1%

Answer 19

.....Okay well then im Confused Lol
The voyager is approx. 4 light years away from Alpha Centauri and that's 4x10^16 in scientific notation but how do I calculate the percent

Answer 20

Actually lets see, it might be more than a %

Answer 21

You divide 1.6*10^13 by 4*10^16 (both in meters) then multiply by 100 to get the percent

Answer 22

So Voyager 1 is 4%

Answer 23

Still surprising ha

Answer 24

Thank you for your help! I have one more question that I also cannot figure out. Do you mind helping me one more time?