On average, sunlight takes 8 minutes and 19 seconds to reach Earth, given an average distance of 150 million kilometers (or 93 million miles) from the Sun and a speed of light of 299,792 kilometers per second.
This number is an average because the Earth’s orbit around the Sun follows an elliptical path, so the distance between the surface of the Sun and Earth varies between 147 million and 152 million kilometres. At their closest, light takes 8 minutes and 10 seconds to travel the distance, and 8 minutes 27 seconds when Earth is at the most distant point in its orbit.
For this reason, the Sun is sometimes described as being over 8 light minutes away from Earth, and when we observe the Sun, what we see occurred an average of 8.3 minutes ago.
