Distances between objects in the solar system and universe are extremely large. If you could race among the stars at the speed of light, how long would it take you to travel to your destination?

Light travels at 186,212 miles per second. However, even at that high speed, the journey through space to most destinations takes a significant amount of time.

Consider the light from the sun and the distance it has to travel to the planets. When light from the Sun hits the Earth, it has taken over 8 minutes to reach us. That means events observed on the sun are actually 8 minutes old. Due to the immense distances in space, we can never really observe astronomical events in "real time". We are always observing events that happened in the past.

Average time for Sunlight to reach the Planets
Mercury Venus Earth Mars Jupiter Saturn Uranus Neptune Pluto
3.2
Minutes
6
Minutes
8.3
Minutes
12.5
Minutes
43
Minutes
1.3
Hours
2.6
Hours
4.1
Hours
5.4
Hours

Light Facts <--Click It!
Read some interesting information about the Voyager 1 spacecraft that is Nearing the heliopause, and how long it takes radio signals from Voyager to reach the Earth. Talk about a remote control nightmare! And if you thought your modem was a tad slow when downloading web information, find out how long it would take you to download this web page from the Voyager spacecraft. You'll find out just how far technology has come in just under 20 years.

Light Traveler <--Click It!
Although theoretically impossible, we at ADR have managed to break the "light barrier" and allow you to travel at the speed of light to anyplace you want to go. It's not as fast as a molecular transporter, but its faster than any Ferrari or Lambourgini. Hop aboard and find out how long it will take you to reach your destination.


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