Quote:
Originally Posted by Skybird
No, it takes just 8 minutes. 
"Light minutes", light years, is a distance unit, not a time unit.  |
i know...but you express yourself, in a way that a teacher would have done,
Since it takes about 8 minutes for the light from the Sun to reach us, then when we point at where we see the Sun, we are actually pointing to where it was 8 minutes ago. The average distance between the earth and the sun is approximately 150,000,000 kilometers. So lets do the math: (150,000,000km)/(300,000km/s) = (500s)/(60s/m) = 8.3 minutes
Keep in mind the distance between the earth and the sun is not constant, the orbit is elliptical so sometimes its longer and sometimes its shorter.Light given off by the Sun has traveled about 300,000 km. Even so, this light has not reached Earth yet. The distance from the Sun to Earth is about "8 light-minutes". Light-minutes sounds more like a time measurement instead of distance, but it means the distance that light travels in a period of 8 minutes. At a speed of 300,000 km/sec, light would travel about 149 million kilometers in 8 minutes.