The 14-Year Delay: Why a Hypothetical Solar Sound Would Arrive Decades After the Light
A thought experiment by Space Daily illustrates the vast difference between light and sound speeds across the Sun-Earth distance. While light takes approximately 8 minutes and 19 seconds to cross one astronomical unit, a hypothetical sound wave traveling at 343 meters per second would take 13.82 years. This comparison highlights that sound cannot physically traverse the vacuum of space, serving only as an arithmetic exercise to emphasize the speed ratio of 874,000 to 1.