Sunlight takes about 8 minutes to reach you
Light leaves the Sun’s surface and crosses 150 million km to Earth in roughly 8 minutes 20 seconds. The light you see from the Sun is always slightly old news.
More space facts
See all →There are more stars than grains of sand on Earth
Astronomers estimate roughly 10^22 to 10^24 stars in the observable universe. Every beach and desert on Earth put together holds far fewer grains of sand.
Read the fact →Neutron stars are so dense a teaspoon would weigh a billion tonnes
A neutron star packs more mass than the Sun into a ball about 20 km across. Its surface gravity is around 100 billion times Earth’s.
Read the fact →It rains diamonds on Neptune and Uranus
Deep in their atmospheres, extreme pressure squeezes carbon from methane into diamond crystals, which sink slowly towards the core — a diamond rain, confirmed in lab experiments.
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