Planetary Distances From The Sun and Time.

[Dryson]

This discussion will involve the distances that each planet is from the Sun.The amount of distance each planet travels around the Sun and factors of time.

Mercury - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_(planet)
Distance from the Sun:47 million km
Distance traveled in a year (88 days): 360,010,252.2 km
How long does light take to reach Mercury: Approximately 3 minutes (2.61111 minutes)
Speed of light: 299,792 kilometers per second

A photon travels for ten seconds and has had covered 2,997,920 million km in those ten seconds.

The photon at the speed of light will have covered 2,536,240,320 km in a single day. The approx. distance that Mercury travels around the Sun in a year is 360,010,252 km.

Within a single day of Merucian time the light photon will have traveled 7.045 Mercury years based on the distance that Mercury travels around the Sun in a year. The light photon has occupied at least seven years worth of distance in one day where only one day would have passed on Mercury.

 

[MacLeod]

Of course the distance from a planet to it's star is not uniform and at certain points in its orbit it is closer to the star than at other points. Though I take it for the purposes of the thread you are going by average distance?

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

The semi-major axis* of Mercury's orbit around the Sun is 58 million km but it has the most eccentric orbit of the eight planets (0.21), varying from a perihelion of 46 million km to an aphelion of 70 million km. I don't know what figure @Dryson is quoting -- it looks like he's mixing up kilometres and miles.

* All elliptical orbits with the same semi-major axis have identical periods, regardless of eccentricity, provided the secondary body has a much smaller mass than the primary body. The orbital period T = 2 * pi * sqrt( a^3 / (G * M)), where a = semi-major axis and M is the mass of the primary body (Sun) so T is proportional to a^1.5.

 

[Nebusj]

Oh, what the heck.

How long does light take to reach Mercury:

Depends from where. If it's traveling in the right direction then from the surface of the sun it takes about three minutes for a bit of light to reach Mercury. Of course, from the center of the sun (where local light is created) it takes about ten million years to get to the surface of the sun, but we don't tend to worry about that since there's light from ten million years ago coming out now. But, then, ten million years and about three minutes, source-to-planet.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

@Dryson really needs to learn how to google or perhaps he's going to enlighten us with a new theory.

 

[Gov Kodos]

Hopefully it's about NASA hiding the existence of Nibiru and the coming of the Anunnaki and their connection to the Subterranean Tiamatian lizard people.

 

[psCargile]

This must be some of that common core math my son struggles with.

 

[Dryson]

Its obvious that you are missing the point.
It is said that if we are able to travel at the speed of light that we would actually not age but others on a planet would age significantly.

The fact is the faster that you travel means that you are only occupying distance or a length at faster rate of velocity. Gravity is the factor and work that a body performs along with DNA determine the rate of aging.

A person traveling at the speed of light does not determine the persons age on a planet that the person traveled away from.

On average the Earth travels 2,575,342.4658 km a day.

In ten seconds of light speed travel the photon will have covered 2,997,920 km.

In 365 days of travel at the speed of light the photon will have covered 945,424,051,200 km. The distance that Earth travels in a year is 940 million km. That equates to the light photon having traveled the same distance that Earth would travel around the Sun in 1,005.8 years. But the fact is the Earth has still only made a single revolution around the Sun even though the light photon has traveled the same distance that the Earth would travel in 1,005.8 years that the light photon has traveled in 365 days.

 

[scotthm]

Its obvious that you are missing the point.

It has been buried much too deeply in obfuscation.

---------------

 

[psCargile]

What is the meaning of these comparisons?

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

There is no universal time -- only local clocks. This discussion therefore seems to be meaningless.

 

[Nebusj]

On average the Earth travels 2,575,342.4658 km a day.

Is that all? Well, heck, I'm willing to get out and push if that'll lift us up to a nice round 2,575,342.4660 km a day.

 

[MacLeod]

I'm willing to bet that the Earth travels more than ~2.6m km/day. As not only is the Earth rotating around Sol, but the Milky Way Galaxy is also roatating

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

It's all relative. We are travelling faster than the speed of light relative to galaxies beyond the Hubble horizon.

 

[Gov Kodos]

Its obvious that you are missing the point.

Things like this don't help you. Especially, when you keep typing utter nonsense and making it clear that you really don't understand the topic with even the specious understanding of a comic book quip from Mr Fantastic.

I'm willing to bet that the Earth travels more than ~2.6m km/day. As not only is the Earth rotating around Sol, but the Milky Way Galaxy is also roatating

Wheel in the sky keeps on turning.

 

[φ of π]

I thought this thread would be about any time dilation experienced by planets closer to (or further away from) a star system's center of gravity.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

Yeah, the further you go into a gravity well, for example the Sun's or a planet's, your clock effectively ticks more slowly than one further away appears to do -- as portrayed in the movie Interstellar.

 

[Kahless the Unforgettable]

There is no universal time -- only local clocks. This discussion therefore seems to be meaningless.

No, there is, because true time is just a concept; it's not a 'real' thing. It is not relative and it is not dependent on observation or light. It's also what the laymen is referring to when they're talking about time. True time is infinite and existed before the Big Bang, and will always exist because it is simply a fundamental concept.

The confusion comes from what physicists refer to as time (as part of space-time, which they had to give a unique name to because it is neither true time nor true space), which is something else entirely, and a very 'real' thing to boot.

It's just all but impossible for us to measure true time due to the wonkiness of space-time and relativity. Which are not at all related to true time, but still gets in the way of figuring out a way of measuring it. It's something we'll eventually need to figure out if/when we start hurling ourselves across the stars, however. Certainly if we want to stay in touch with ourselves after we do so and maintain a historical record in the process.

 

[psCargile]

If you can't do science with "true" time, then it is meaningless.

 

[Nebusj]

No, there is, because true time is just a concept; it's not a 'real' thing. It is not relative and it is not dependent on observation or light. It's also what the laymen is referring to when they're talking about time. True time is infinite and existed before the Big Bang, and will always exist because it is simply a fundamental concept.

So ... True Time is a non-real thing that always existed and will always exist, but is not observable, and it's what laymen are thinking of when they talk about time, but it's scientists who are confused.