this post was submitted on 11 Jan 2025
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Photons (lemmy.world)
submitted 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) by ekZepp@lemmy.world to c/science_memes@mander.xyz
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[–] ryedaft@sh.itjust.works 53 points 11 months ago (5 children)

Photons don't gather energy and they definitely don't move slowly through the sun.

[–] Artyom@lemm.ee 50 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months 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.

[–] bdonvr@thelemmy.club 38 points 11 months ago (2 children)

It can definitely take millions of years for photons to leave a star due to dense protons causing collisions.

https://futurism.com/photons-million-year-journey-center-sun

[–] take6056@feddit.nl 8 points 11 months 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@fedia.io 4 points 11 months 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.

[–] gubblebumbum@lemm.ee 2 points 11 months ago

also temperature doesn't really exist at that scale.