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The speed of light in vacuum, commonly denoted c, is a universal physical constant that is exactly equal to 299,792,458 metres per second (approximately 300,000 kilometres per second; 186,000 miles per second; 671 million miles per hour).
By timing the eclipses of Jupiter's moon Io, Rømer estimated that light would take about 22 minutes to travel a distance equal to the diameter of Earth's orbit around the Sun. [1] Using modern orbits, this would imply a speed of light of 226,663 kilometres per second, [2] 24.4% lower than the true value of 299,792 km/s. [3]
A light-minute is 60 light-seconds, and so the average distance between Earth and the Sun is 8.317 light-minutes. The average distance between Pluto and the Sun (34.72 AU [5]) is 4.81 light-hours. [6] Humanity's most distant artificial object, Voyager 1, has an interstellar velocity of 3.57 AU per year, [7] or 29.7 light-minutes per year. [8]
He estimated that light takes about 11 minutes to travel from the Sun to Earth. Using today's knowledge of the Sun-Earth distance, this would amount to a speed of light of approximately 220,000 kilometers per second, [1] compared to today's accepted value of just under 300,000 kilometers per second.
The speed of light in vacuum is defined to be exactly 299 792 458 m/s (approximately 186,282 miles per second). The fixed value of the speed of light in SI units results from the fact that the metre is now defined in terms of the speed of light. All forms of electromagnetic radiation move at exactly this same speed in vacuum.
The fastest possible speed at which energy or information can travel, according to special relativity, is the speed of light in vacuum c = 299 792 458 metres per second (approximately 1 079 000 000 km/h or 671 000 000 mph). Matter cannot quite reach the speed of light
Astronomers discovered supersonic winds on a giant gas planet located over 500 light-years from Earth. ... 0.5 km per second, scientists said. This artist's visualisation of WASP-127b, a giant gas ...
The speed of light is 299,792,458 metres per second (983,571,056 ft/s), or about one foot per nanosecond. If it were exactly one foot per nanosecond, and a target was one data mile away, then the radar return from that target would arrive 12 microseconds after the transmission.