And do any other particles escape? And how?
In: Chemistry
Then why does it take a million years??
https://futurism.com/photons-million-year-journey-center-sun
I think this questions ponders on the fact that a body of gigantic mass can emit so much light and and energy. Why don’t they all get stuck to it.
And the answer to that question lies much more in particle physics.
There is a fundamental divide in the Standard Model between particles that have mass and those that do not.
Particles without mass will always move at the speed of light. (Which includes, but is not limited to photons)
The speed of light is much greater than the escape velocity from the sun. But there is a limit, it’s called an Event Horizon, and it’s where Black Holes come from.
Edit Thinking on a sec, if you think on a logarithmic scale, the sun isn’t that far off. A single atom weighs about 10^-20kg, the sun is is 10^30kg. If it was 100x heavier, it would have turned into a Black Hole real fast, long ago. On the scale of atom to biggest possible galactic object, the Sun is near miss.
I love how a sizeable portion of the top rated comments here have an incorrect explanation of why photons can escape the sun’s gravity.
If an object is so massive and dense that light can’t escape its gravity, then that object is a black hole — not a normal star.
In fact, that is a *definition* of a black hole: an object in space that light cannot escape.
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