How long would it take to get to Jupiter if traveling at a speed of 100000 kmhr?

Answer 1

That's obviously pretty fast ... fast enough to go around the world in 24 minutes !

Let's see how it stacks up for interplanetary travel:

Real space probes never travel in straight lines. But to get a feel for what can be accomplished

at this tremendous speed, we'll just make things simple ... assume we travel in straight lines,

and assume that whatever object we want to see is right there when we get there.

OK. We leave earth and move away from it at 100,000 km/hr . . . . .

We pass the moon in 3hours 49minutes (it took the Apollo missions 3 days)

On our way to Jupiter, we cross the orbit of Mars in 32.6 days. Mars may or may not be there.

We spend considerable time crossing the asteroid belt ... actually a band wide enough that

there probably should have been another planet in there. Maybe that has something to do

with the asteroids. Who knows. We have a lot of ground to cover, and can't stop to investigate.

We arrive at Jupiter's orbit in 262 days after we left earth. (That answers the original question.)

The planet is there, but we're making such good time at our unimaginably high speed that we

decide to keep going, and see where else we can get to before we run out of beer.

We reach Saturn after 535 days. It's so beautiful, we hang around for a while and take some pictures.

Then everybody makes a quick pit stop, and we're back on the "road" again, still at 100,000 km/hr.

We reach the orbit of Uranus about 3 years and 40 days after leaving earth. We pass Neptune

with 2 weeks left to go before the 5th anniversary of our launch, and we pass Pluto after

6 years and 210 days.

Frankly, this is getting old, and the novelty has worn off. Some of our crew were beginning to

consider mutiny, until somebody realized ... Hey ! Where can we go ? So they settled down.

But the thrill has definitely gone out of this whole enterprise.

We've passed Pluto. Now, except for a bunch of assorted trash, comets, ice blocks, dust bunnies,

Oort and Kuiper junk too small, numerous, and dark to name, there's nothing gonna be along

out here for quite a while. So we put her on autopilot, relax, settle in, and grab some Z's.

The next thing worth seeing is going to be the Alpha Centauri star system ... the star nearest to

the sun and solar system. We've come too far to turn back, so we might as well go see what

that's all about. Maybe some good antique shops etc.

We're cruising away from the sun at 100,000 km per hour, heading for the next star nearest

the sun. At our super colossal speed, we'll be there in no time.

Counting from the time we blasted away from earth, we reach the next star in 10,793 years.