The Earth circles peacefully around the Sun at about 149 million kilometers or 92.75 million miles on average. Our orbit is slightly elliptical so our distance swings from anywhere as far as 94.5 million miles and as close as 91 million miles. There are a lot of interesting facts about the Earth I’ll save for another post but to keep the theme going, I’ll give you an idea of just how far that distance is and how it translates into concepts we’re all familiar with.
A Boeing 747 cruises at a speed of about 570 miles per hour. If you were to fly one non-stop, with an unlimited fuel supply, to the Sun from the Earth it would take 162,719 hours or 6780 days or 18 ½ years. Hope you REALLY like airline food.
To drive to the Sun at a comfortable 60 miles per hour would require a trip of 1,545,833 hours or 64409 days or about 176 years. I’d suggest getting a tune up and your tires rotated before setting out.
Want to walk? It’s too insane to contemplate but if you were so inclined you would be looking at 26,500,000 hours or about 1,104,166 days or about 3025 years to complete your trip and I bet there’d be no vacancies at the hotels when you finally got there.
The distance between the Earth and the Sun is so vast that it takes light leaving the Sun’s surface over 8 minutes to reach us!