In message , Roger Hamlett
writes

"Jonathan Silverlight"
wrote in message ...

I thought it was a highly entertaining evening, and "The Sky at Night"
really whetted my appetite for the solar eclipse this month!
But is the speed of light really "less than 1 millimetre per second" in
the core of the Sun? I thought the photons just did a very long random
walk on their way out.

Keyword missing in the statement. 'Effective'.
The actual speed is reduced by the enviroment, but not by this much!...


Thanks - that's what I thought. I wonder if the random walk and the very
long time it takes light to escape inspired Bob Shaw's "Slow Glass".
Does anyone actually know the speed of light in the core? (though I'd
guess most of the radiation is hard X-rays)
If it's anything like the speed in vacuum the photons effectively travel
several thousand light years before escaping.