I got to thinking....(I know, right!?!)

It is beautiful out today, so I spent some time on the deck this morning with the laptop, and I saw a plane far off on the horizon. I figured it had to be five miles up in the air or so, and the sun was rising in the east, and I just sort of let my mind wander and was wondering how far away the plane must have been. How far could I see? 

Bonus rambling thoughts about the speed of light and how even if the speed of light is 186,000 mps, I was basically seeing the light reflecting off the plane instantaneously, even though it was probably several hundred miles away, because at 186k per second, this thing could be no more than a few hundred miles away, that basically means that the light from the reflection on the plane was there in a fraction of a fraction of a second. 

Plus, I know planes fly along the curve of the earth, so I just generally confused myself wondering just how far away the plane is. Then I started to wonder about how long it takes the light reflecting off all the things in my yard must take a billionth of a second or less to reach my eyes from ten feet away.

So this led to other factoids about light and how fast everything is...

• The speed of light is generally rounded down to 186,000 mps. In exact terms it is 299,792,458 m/s, (that is equal to 186,287.49 mps.)
• It takes 8 minutes 17 seconds for light to travel from the sun's surface to the Earth.
• The Earth spins at 1,000 mph, but travels through space at 67,000 mph.