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How long does sunlight take to reach each planet?

Sunlight takes 8 minutes 19 seconds to reach Earth and 4 hours 11 minutes to reach Neptune. Light from the Sun to Pluto's average distance takes 5 hours 28 minutes.

A heart-shaped dark patch in the Sun's outer atmosphere, seen in extreme ultraviolet light — A heart-shaped dark coronal hole on the Sun, seen in extreme ultraviolet light by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory on February 1, 2013. Image: NASA/SDO.

Light travel time from the Sun to each planet, at its average distance
Planet	Average distance from the Sun (miles)	Light travel time
Mercury	35,977,392	3 minutes 13 seconds
Venus	67,232,363	6 minutes 1 seconds
Earth	92,957,130	8 minutes 19 seconds
Mars	141,672,632	12 minutes 41 seconds
Jupiter	483,737,473	43 minutes 17 seconds
Saturn	889,803,547	1 hour 19 minutes
Uranus	1,781,471,207	2 hours 39 minutes
Neptune	2,805,490,932	4 hours 11 minutes
Pluto	3,670,066,808	5 hours 28 minutes

Light travel time from Earth

Because every world is at a different distance on different days, the time a radio signal or a flash of light takes to reach Earth changes too. The Moon is 1.4 seconds away at its farthest, and Mars is between 3 minutes 2 seconds and 22 minutes 19 seconds away.

Light travel time from each world to Earth
World	At the closest	At the farthest
The Moon	1.2 seconds	1.4 seconds
The Sun	8 minutes 11 seconds	8 minutes 27 seconds
Venus	2 minutes 7 seconds	14 minutes 31 seconds
Mars	3 minutes 2 seconds	22 minutes 19 seconds
Jupiter	32 minutes 43 seconds	53 minutes 51 seconds
Saturn	1 hour 7 minutes	1 hour 32 minutes
Pluto	3 hours 58 minutes	6 hours 58 minutes

Light travel time for any distance

Distance

Unit

Sources and method

Distances from the NASA Planetary Fact Sheet, accessed October 18, 2026. Light travels at 299,792.458 km/s in a vacuum. One astronomical unit is 149,597,870.7 km.