How long does it take sunlight to travel from the Sun to Earth?
About 8 minutes
The answer was About 8 minutes. Here's the why, the decoys, and the source trail.
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Light travels at roughly 186,000 miles per second, and the Sun is about 93 million miles from Earth. That means sunlight takes approximately 8 minutes and 20 seconds to reach us — so the sunlight you see is always slightly old.
A good trivia question makes the wrong answers feel close. Here is the clean read on the set.
- About 30 seconds - a decoy; it may live near the same topic, but it does not answer this exact clue.
- About 8 minutes - correct answer.
- About 45 minutes - a decoy; it may live near the same topic, but it does not answer this exact clue.
- About 3 hours - a decoy; it may live near the same topic, but it does not answer this exact clue.
About 8 minutes is the one to remember. Light travels at roughly 186,000 miles per second, and the Sun is about 93 million miles from Earth. Sunlight takes about 5.5 hours to reach Pluto, meaning if the Sun suddenly went dark, Pluto wouldn't know for nearly six hours.
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Sources: NASA