How long does it take for the Sun's light to reach us?

My questions are. How long does it take for the light from the sun to reach the Earth, and other planets in the Milky Way? How far does the sun's light travel beyond our solar system? How much larger is the sun compared to the planets in our solar system? Thank you for your time.

The sun's light takes about 8 minutes to reach the Earth after it has been emitted from the sun's surface. The time it takes for light to reach planets in our Solar System (not the Milky Way, which is our galaxy) varies from about 3 minutes for Mercury, to about 5.3 hours for Pluto. There is nothing out in space to prevent the sun's light from going infinitely far, in principle. In practice, the sun is only 4.5 billion years old, so its light can only extend 4.5 billion light years away from us right now. But there's nothing to stop that light from expanding outwards forever, as time goes on. The sun's radius is about 100 times that of the Earth, meaning that about 1.12 million Earths could fit inside it, as could about 930 Jupiters.

January 1999, Dave Kornreich (more by Dave Kornreich)

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