It takes light 8.3 minutes to reach Earth from the surface of the sun. But it took an estimated 100,000 years for the energy produced in the core of the sun to make its way out to the surface of the sun.
The energy is created in the core of the sun. A photon of energy is absorbed in just a couple of millimeters of travel, then reemitted, where it travels another millimeter or so. So it takes anywhere from 10,000 to 170,000 YEARS for energy to get from the core of the sun (where it is produced in fusion reactions) to the edge of the photosphere. From there, energy is radiated into space, where it travels at the speed of light with essential zero interactions. It takes about 8 minutes to go the 93M miles to Earth.
Well lets do the math, on january 3rd 2008 at 0:00 UTC the earth is at it’s perihelion (closest to the sun. ) 91,700,000 miles, so at the speed of light (186 282.397 miles per second) it would take the heat and light from the sun 492.26336721445558809295330250662 seconds or 8.20438945 minutes to reach earth.
The fastest form of the Sun’s energy, light, takes almost 8 minutes and 30 seconds.
about 8 minutes
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