Answer to Question #55949 in General Chemistry for susan borgersen

Question

When Voyager 2 encountered the planet Saturn in 1981, the planet was approximately 1 billion miles (1 X 109 mi) from the Earth. How long did it take for the television picture signal to reach the Earth from Saturn? (1 mile = 1.61 km)


If energy is absorbed by a hydrogen atom in its ground state, the atom is excited to a higher energy state. For example, the excitation of an electron from the orbital with n=1 to an orbital with n=4 requires radiation with a wavelength of 97.2 nm. Which of the following transitions would require radiation of longer wavelength than this?
a. n=2 to n=4 b. n=1 to n=3
c. n=1 to n=3 d. n=3 to n=5

Answer 1

Part 1
Speed of light = 3.00 x 10⁵ km/s
Time = distance / speed = (1.61 x 109 km) / (3.00 x 10⁵ km/s) = 5366.7 s = 1.5 hours
Part 2
d. n = 3 to n = 5