Question 13. How long does it take the light from the Sun to reach Earth?
The light from the Sun travels at the speed of light, 186,282 miles per second. Since the Sun is about 93 million miles from Earth, it takes the light about 8.4 minutes to reach us. This means that when you look up at the Sun, you are actually seeing it the way it looked 8.4 minutes ago. To give you an idea just how close we are to the Sun, the light from the next nearest star, Proxima Centauri, takes 4.3 years to reach the Earth.
