This video is incredible.

In our terrestrial view of things, the speed of light seems incredibly fast. But as soon as you view it against the vast distances of the universe, it’s unfortunately very slow. This animation illustrates, in realtime, the journey of a photon of light emitted from the surface of the sun and traveling across a portion of the solar system, from a human perspective.

It takes light about 8 minutes to reach Earth, 43 to reach Jupiter. Just knowing that though isn’t enough. Watching it makes all the difference.

I don’t expect anyone to watch the whole 45 minutes, but even watching a portion will give you a greater sense of the vastness of our solar system. I clicked through to skip time in between celestial bodies and even that blew my mind.

I’m tempted to put it up on the TV while cooking dinner or something.

Make sure to watch it in full screen mode so you can read the text.