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Comment by PunchyHamster

11 hours ago

[flagged]

Oh, probably skipped physics too. I haven't seen the video (yet), but I would have bet that light on earth came out 8 minutes ago from the sun.

  • Light from the sun that is reaching us now escaped the surface of the sun 8 minutes ago, yes.

    But photons are generated in the core through nuclear reactions, where they take their sweet amount of thousands of years bouncing around until they get out.

    • And thats a fact you don't need to learn in high school, at least you didn't in my time.

    • I think this is right in a certain sense, but not precisely. From what I understand no visible light photons are created in the core from nuclear fusion, it's mostly a bunch of gamma rays that get almost immediately absorbed. The energy, but not the photons from fusion, gets transfered up through the layers of the sun, through radiation and convection, eventually heating the photosphere. It is then the photosphere, white hot, which ultimately radiates the visible light we see as sunlight.