The universe has a speed limit, and it’s the speed of light. Nothing can travel faster than light — not even our best spacecraft — according to the laws of physics.
So, what is the speed of light?
Light moves at an incredible 186,000 miles per second (300,000 kilometers per second), equivalent to almost 700 million mph (more than 1 billion km/h). That’s fast enough to circumnavigate the globe 7.5 times in one second, while a typical passenger jet would take more than two days to go around once (and that doesn’t include stops for fuel or layovers!).
Light moves so fast that, for much of human history, we thought it traveled instantaneously. As early as the late 1600s, though, scientist Ole Roemer was able to measure the speed of light (usually referred to as c) by using observations of Jupiter’s moons, according to Britannica.
“Writer Fuel” is a series of cool real-world stories that might inspire your little writer heart. Check out our Writer Fuel page on the LimFic blog for more inspiration.
