Age of Today's Sunlight - 50,000,000 (50 Million) Years

in #science6 years ago

Image Source

Hello everyone...

Do you guys believe thet, the age of the sunlight you receive today is 50 Million???

We all know that 'Light' is faster than anything in the world. It is a simple science. Here I have something new you might not know. The sunlight we get daily is created from the center of the Sun. We all know that. But, it was not an instant one. The light might have been created from the sun more than 50 million.

The speed of light is 186,388 miles per second. And Earth is 92.96 million miles away from the Sun in an average. If we calculate, it will take approximately 8.31 minutes for the light to knock your windows. But what really happens here is weird to know. These light waves are made to wander around inside the sun for even a million of years.

The radius of the sun is  432,288 miles (695,700 km). Inside the Sun the light particles (photons) won't travel in a straight path. This makes the light to travel considerably longer. They travel like a drunken man. Let us consider a drunken man. He cannot walk straight in a road. His steps will differ from the walk cycle of a normal man. Everytime he takes a step, he will land in a random direction and looks for a lamppost nearby for a balance. To calculate how long will it take for him to reach his destination, just consider the step it actually take to reach the destination (For example 20 steps) and square it (20^2 = 400 steps). So after wandering for 400 steps he will reach his destination.

Image Source

Likewise, the Sun doesn't possess any lampposts. Here a different process takes place. Millions of Hydrogen atoms fuse to form Helium. This collision creates Neutrinos (elementary particles that hardly interact with particles) and Gamma rays (High energy photons that interact with particles in higher way). Whenever neutrinos collide with atoms nothing bigger happens. But when gamma rays collide with atoms, they are re-emitted in random directions. If we try to calculate the time taken, that will ranges from 10,000 to 50 million years. It's a drunkard's walk. This is purely based on the drunkard movement of the photons. If the movement is in centimeters, then the reach time might be 5,000 years.Else if the movement is reduced to millimeters, then the time will be 50 million years. Until we come to know the exact density of photons in the core of the Sun, we cannot find the answer for sure.

Sort:  

Congratulations! This post has been upvoted from the communal account, @minnowsupport, by Jegannath Alagendran from the Minnow Support Project. It's a witness project run by aggroed, ausbitbank, teamsteem, theprophet0, someguy123, neoxian, followbtcnews, and netuoso. The goal is to help Steemit grow by supporting Minnows. Please find us at the Peace, Abundance, and Liberty Network (PALnet) Discord Channel. It's a completely public and open space to all members of the Steemit community who voluntarily choose to be there.

If you would like to delegate to the Minnow Support Project you can do so by clicking on the following links: 50SP, 100SP, 250SP, 500SP, 1000SP, 5000SP.
Be sure to leave at least 50SP undelegated on your account.