Solar Fusion: Neutrinos Escape in Seconds, Energy Takes Centuries
Sunlight arriving on Earth today left the solar surface eight minutes ago, but the energy it carries began its journey in the core roughly 170,000 years ago. While neutrinos from the same fusion process exit the Sun in about two seconds, photons undergo a slow random walk through dense plasma. This disparity highlights that solar energy transport is a diffusion process, not a direct beam, and that the photons reaching Earth are newly created particles carrying ancient energy.
