How far are we?

info

In this example, we'll demonstrate the approximate distances of celestial bodies in light minutes.

Note

While the entire code is written in Python, the same principles can be applied to other programming languages as well.

From Earth.

LIGHT_SPEED = 299792  # km/s
distances_from_earth = [
    {'name': 'Sun', 'distance': 150000000},
    {'name': 'Mercury', 'distance': 91691000},
    {'name': 'Venus', 'distance': 41400000},
    {'name': 'Moon', 'distance': 384402},
    {'name': 'Mars', 'distance': 78340000},
    {'name': 'Asteroid Belt', 'distance': 478700000},
    {'name': 'Jupiter', 'distance': 628730000},
    {'name': 'Saturn', 'distance': 1275000000},
    {'name': 'Uranus', 'distance': 2723950000},
    {'name': 'Neptune', 'distance': 4351400000},
    {'name': 'Kuiper Belt', 'distance': 7330000000},
    {'name': 'Oort Cloud', 'distance': 7479890000000},
]

def to_light_minutes(distance):
    light_minutes = distance / (LIGHT_SPEED * 60)
    return round(light_minutes, 2)

def main():
    print("Approximate distance from Earth (in Light Minutes):")
    print()

    for planet in distances_from_earth:
        name = planet['name']
        distance = planet['distance']
        light_minutes = to_light_minutes(distance)
        print(f"{name}: {light_minutes} light minutes")

if __name__ == "__main__":
    main()

Show output

Approximate distance from Earth (in Light Minutes):

Sun: 8.34 light minutes
Mercury: 5.1 light minutes
Venus: 2.3 light minutes
Moon: 0.02 light minutes
Mars: 4.36 light minutes
Asteroid Belt: 26.61 light minutes
Jupiter: 34.95 light minutes
Saturn: 70.88 light minutes
Uranus: 151.44 light minutes
Neptune: 241.91 light minutes
Kuiper Belt: 407.5 light minutes
Oort Cloud: 415837.76 light minutes

From the Sun.

LIGHT_SPEED = 299792
distances_from_sun = [
    {'name': 'Mercury', 'distance': 57910000},
    {'name': 'Venus', 'distance': 108200000},
    {'name': 'Earth', 'distance': 149600000},
    {'name': 'Mars', 'distance': 227900000},
    {'name': 'Jupiter', 'distance': 778500000},
    {'name': 'Saturn', 'distance': 1427000000},
    {'name': 'Uranus', 'distance': 2871000000},
    {'name': 'Neptune', 'distance': 4497000000},
]

def to_minutes(distance):
    return float(distance) / (LIGHT_SPEED * 60)

def main():
    print("Approximate distance the Sun (in Light Minutes):")
    print()
    for planet in distances_from_sun:
        print(f"{planet['name']}: {round(to_minutes(planet['distance']), 2)} light minutes")

if __name__ == "__main__":
    main()

Show output

Approximate distance the Sun (in Light Minutes):

Mercury: 3.22 light minutes
Venus: 6.02 light minutes
Earth: 8.32 light minutes
Mars: 12.67 light minutes
Jupiter: 43.28 light minutes
Saturn: 79.33 light minutes
Uranus: 159.61 light minutes
Neptune: 250.01 light minutes

Fun fact

Great! Now that we've learned how to code basic calculations, we've also discovered that we are actually looking back in time.