why does the heat from the core of the sun takes more than a 1000 years to reach its surface but the heat from the sun to our planet only takes about 8 minutes.

Question

I’m unsure if the 1000 years time is true or not, I just saw a poster of it at an elementary school.

In: 214

Answer 1

The sun is made up of a number of particles that is impossible for a person to perceive. Whatever number you’re thinking of, it’s probably bigger. These particles are very small and are very easily influenced as far as direction goes. They’re all like little pool balls and each one will bounce around until they 1. Run out of energy (they dont) or 2. Reach the “pocket” (surface).

How long this takes is entirely dependent on how many particles it hits on the way. It’s very unlikely but a particles can shoot right from the core to the surface. It has to not hit any of the 10^24 particles present every cubic centimeter, but it can.

Now compare that huge amount of particles in a cubic centimeter of the sun to the roughly 5.9 particles present in a cubic *meter* of space. That’s basically nothing. That’s like shooting a pool ball down an airport runway in a random direction and seeing if it hits another ball before it gets to the end. These particles will cover that distance essentially undisturbed. Whatever direction they were going once they hit the surface is the direction they’ll go until they hit something, which may not happen for thousands of years.