The Sun could be gone — and you'd never know yet.
Right now, at this very moment, you might be looking at the Sun — or feeling its warmth on your skin. But what you're experiencing is not the Sun as it is. It's the Sun as it was, over eight minutes ago.
Light travels at roughly 300,000 kilometres per second. Nothing in the universe moves faster. And yet, with 150 million kilometres sitting between us and the Sun, even light needs around eight minutes and twenty seconds to close that gap.
So if the Sun simply ceased to exist right now, Earth would carry on — lit, warmed, completely unaware — for more than eight minutes before darkness arrived.
And that's just our nearest star. Light from Proxima Centauri, the next one along, has been travelling for over four years before it reaches your eye.
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