Kathleen Mitchell, age 11, of Schenectady, New York, for her question:

How long does it take a ray of sunlight to reach us?

The sunbeam that just landed on your nose set out from home about eight minutes ago. Everywhere in the universe, rays of light travel at the same old speed which is about 186,282 miles per second. The planet Earth is about 93 million miles from the starry sun. When one of our sunbeams leaves the sun, it whips across this distance at 11,176,920 miles every minute which is a little faster than 67 million miles per hour.

Traveling at this fantastic speed, a ray of light from the blazing sun takes about 490 seconds to reach the earth. Actually it takes about eight minutes plus a little longer than two extra seconds. The light from the next nearest starry sun takes about four and a half years to reach the earth.