Light From the Sun Takes 8 Minutes 20 Seconds to Reach Earth

Sunlight feels immediate, but the reality is very different. Light travels at 299,792 km per second (186,000 miles per second), but the Sun is approximately 150 million km (93 million miles) away — so sunlight takes exactly 8 minutes and 20 seconds to reach Earth.

This means the sunlight you feel on your skin right now actually left the Sun about 8 minutes ago. Extending this further: it takes light from Proxima Centauri (our nearest stellar neighbor) 4.2 years to reach us. Light from the Andromeda Galaxy — the farthest object visible to the naked eye — takes 2.5 million years. When you gaze at the night sky, you're literally looking back in time.