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Sunlight
What Does Solar Mean?
Solar is a Latin language word that means
Sunlight is made up of very small energy packets called photons. Sunlight travels very fast: 186,000 miles per second.
The sun is 93 million miles from Earth. It takes a photon 8.33 minutes to get from the sun to Earth. Here's the calculation:
- We know that the distance between the sun and the earth is 93,000,000 miles.
- We know that photons (packets of light) travel at 186,000 miles per second.
- We divide 93,000,000 miles by 186,000 miles/second = 500 seconds.
- We divide 500 seconds by 60 seconds in a minute = 8.333 minutes.
Photons colliding with things makes them visible and sometimes warmer. Sunlight provides us with light and heat.
3D image of the sun
Courtesy of NASA
