• @[email protected]
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      48
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      11 days ago
      1. They’re traveling in a medium, so they move slower than in space
      2. Due to the random walk caused by multiple scattering, it can take millions of years for a photon to escape the sun after being produced in the core.

      You are right that they don’t gather energy, but they do multiply. What would be a single high energy x ray in the core will eventually downscatter into an army of optical photons.

      • stebo
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        614 days ago

        I get what you’re saying but taking a long time is not the same as moving slowly

        • @[email protected]
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          1914 days ago

          Slowly making their way does not equal moving slowly. It describes the time it takes to exit the sun, not the speed of the particle.

            • @Klear
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              314 days ago

              And cold wind is when slow-moving air hits you at a fast speed.

        • @pyre
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          414 days ago

          v = d / t, so technically it is.

          • stebo
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            314 days ago

            but the distance the photon travels is very large, just in random directions

            • @pyre
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              114 days ago

              I know I was being pedantic about your comment because I thought it was kinda funny interpreting it out of context.

    • @[email protected]
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      814 days ago

      For photons, their moving relatively slow from the inside to the outside of the sun. Although, I think, it’s technically a bunch of photons bumping each other into existence.

    • Nougat
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      414 days ago

      … they definitely don’t move slowly through the sun.

      They kind of do. While the photons inside the Sun move at a very high speed, they can take up to about 170,000 years to get from the middle of the Sun to the outside, because they change directions a lot on the way.