When we look at our sun how far into the past are we looking? and how do we know what the speed of light is?

Question

When we look at our sun how far into the past are we looking? and how do we know what the speed of light is?

Answer 1

all science is theory, for example an object will be found and it is said it is between 3 and 4 million years old. OK the difference between 3 and 4 million years is a million years, so why not say it is between 1 day and 1 million years old. Don`t get sucked into sciencetific theories. Believe in God and you will find the truths

Answer 2

Oh good!  A question that connects to Gallileo!  

The sun is 8 light minutes away.  How was this initially determined?

When the heliocentric nature of our solar system became fully accepted, and the 4 large moons orbiting Jupiter were determined to have extrmely predictable "eclipse" times, studies were done to test the hypotesis of the times of these eclipses.

But something was wrong.  The "average" time was accurate, but some eclipses were as much as 8 minutes early.  Some were as much as 8 minutes late.  A sixteen minute window couldn't be explained.  Until, the hypothesis that "light takes time to travel a distance" was proposed.  As it turned out, when Jupiter was at opposition (as close to the earth as possible) these eclipses were always at the "8 minute early" mark.  And the reverse was true when Jupiter was at conjunction.  (or near to, seeing how Jupiter would not be visible from behind the sun).  

What was the difference in distance?  Well, the difference was double the  distance from earth to sun (in the sixteen minute discrepencies), so, it became speculated, and later confirmed, that light takes 8 minutes to travel from the sun to earth!  (Or 16 minutes to travel from one point of the earth's orbit, to the sun, to the opposite point in the earth's orbit.)

Answer 3

Light from the sun is about 8 minutes old.  So if it were to explode we wouldn't know about it for 8 minutes.

Answer 4

We are looking approximately 8 minutes in past. By the way, how do u manage to look at the sun?????

Answer 5

You would be looking at something which was there about 8 minutes ago. The speed of light was verified by experiments.

Answer 6

8.333 minutes ago. since c is the universal constant c is determined by the velocity of photons