Photons created in the immensely dense, fusion-powered core of the sun can take upwards of one hundred thousand years to aggressively bounce their way up to the star's surface.

A closer look

Photons created in the immensely dense, fusion-powered core of the sun can take upwards of one hundred thousand years to aggressively bounce their way up to the star's surface. Because the plasma inside the sun is so thickly packed, a single particle of light only travels a fraction of an inch before instantly colliding with an atom and being violently redirected in a completely random drunkard's walk. Once that photon finally breaches the solar surface, it takes a mere eight minutes to casually sprint across the vacuum of space and violently strike your retinas. When you get a bad sunburn on a beach vacation, you are being directly assaulted by ancient, prehistoric light that began its miserable, claustrophobic journey outward long before the first modern humans ever figured out how to build a fire