• Question: How long does it take for sunlight to reach the earth?

    Asked by lbahtri09 to James, Marcus, Martin, Rob, Suzanne on 15 Mar 2012.
    • Photo: Suzanne McEndoo

      Suzanne McEndoo answered on 15 Mar 2012:

      I think it takes about 8 minutes for light to get from the sun to us.

    • Photo: Robert Thompson

      Robert Thompson answered on 16 Mar 2012:

      The earth is 1 Astronomical unit from the earth, which equal to 149,597,870,070 meters, and light travels at 299,792,458 meters per second. so using the equation distance = speed x time, we can work out it takes 499 seconds, which is 8.3 minutes

    • Photo: Martin Zaltz Austwick

      Martin Zaltz Austwick answered on 19 Mar 2012:

      8 minutes 19 seconds, according to Wikipedia 🙂

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