how long does it take for light to reach the earth from the sun? Any guesses or do you know for real?

Question

light travels at 186000 mpsecond

Answer 1

Eight minutes, eighteen seconds (00:08:18) is close enough for any practical purpose.

Other answerers have given you the basis of the calculations, which is elementary.

Have we succeeded in convincing you that we are not guessing?

Answer 2

The time light from sun reaches the earth is not all the same on the Globe . The reason is that the earth is moving and the rays from the sun dont arrive fast enogh and miss the globe.So the only ray that reach the earth would be those that exit at angle from the Sun at a direction ahead of the earth and the earth catches up to the ray.So the exact time calculation is a little complex.

Answer 3

93 million miles divided by 186000 miles per second gives 500 seconds, which is 8 minutes and 20 seconds. This can vary by about 5 seconds either way depending on where the earth is in its orbit.

Answer 4

Everyone here has given the correct answer from the perspective of the earthbound observer, but did you know that from the perspective of the photon of light the journey takes less than a nanosecond! That's correct; because of time dilation effects caused by light speed (as explained by Einstein) that eight minute journey is only eight minutes to us.

Time is "RELATIVE" - as in Theory Of Relativity

Additionally; your question doesn't say so but I assume that you mean the time from the suns "SURFACE" to the Earth. Did you now that "on average" an individual photon of light can take thousands of years to work its way from the suns core before it escapes into space? this is because it is absorbed and emitted trillions of times in a chaotic route throughout the sun.

Answer 5

The standard value is 499.005 seconds, or 8.31675 minutes. This is for the distance from the Sun's center to the Earth's center, or more precisely, the Astronomical Unit of distance.

The exact value changes over the year, depending on how far the Earth is from the Sun.

Answer 6

8,31 minutes in respect of the semi-major axis distance of 93 million miles is of course 8 minutes 19 seconds NOT 8 minutes 31 seconds.

Earth is briefly at this distance in the first week of April and the first week of October every year (about a fortnight after the spring and autumn equinoxes).

Earth is at perihelion (nearest to the Sun) in the first week of January and at aphelion (at its farthest from the Sun) in the first week of July every year (about a fortnight after the winter and summer solstices).

Aphelion distance: 152,097,701 km
(1.016 710 333 5 AU)
94,509,130 miles

Perihelion distance: 147,098,074 km
(0.983 289 891 2 AU)
91,402,725 miles

You can plug these numbers into the equation Time = Distance / Speed and get precise results but for a rule of thumb easy-to-remember result this is 18 seconds (just under 17 in fact) in six months or 3 seconds a month or a tenth of a second per day that needs to be added to the perihelion result of the first week of January (8 minutes 10 seconds) as the date moves on towards July and conversely needs to be subtracted from the aphelion result of the first week of July (8 minutes 28 seconds) as the date moves on towards January.

Answer 7

No need to guess, simple math answers this one. Since you know the speed of light, you could have figured this one out for yourself. The answer is about 8 1/2 minutes.

Answer 8

Approximately 8 minutes!

Answer 9

the same time that it takes for light from the sun to reach the earth.
since the sun is 8 1/2 minutes away, then i guess that that's the answer.
God bless,
gabe

Answer 10

The sun is about 8.3 light minutes from the earth. Just divide 93,000,000 by (186,000 * 60) and you'll get real close.