Because light travels at a finite (if extremely fast) speed, everything we see is slightly delayed — from a fraction of a nanosecond across a room to years across space.
Because light travels at a finite (if extremely fast) speed, everything we see is slightly delayed — from a fraction of a nanosecond across a room to years across space. This calculator finds how long light takes to cross any given distance.
The Sun is about 149,600,000 km from Earth. Travel Time = 149,600,000 / 299,792.458 ≈ 499 seconds ≈ 8.3 minutes — the time sunlight takes to reach Earth.
Time = distance ÷ speed of light (about 299,792 km/s).
We see distant objects as they were in the past, since their light took time to reach us.
About 8 minutes and 20 seconds.