I think it's more like 8 light-minutes, from memory.

More than that from MY memory...

You guys are so smart!

http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/ast99/ast99431.htm

Gail and I win... and maybe D got his 3 from the .3? ;)

Well, simple enough to confirm, I think:

1 light-minute = 11,160,000 miles. The distance earth-sun is 1 AU (92,955,807 miles ). Divide 1 AU by that, and you get 8.329 light-minutes.

Dave

If we were 5 light-minutes closer to the sun would we be broiled?

Dabba, if we were ONE light-minute closer, things would get a warm (though not broiled, no doubt.) FIVE light-minutes closer would, indeed, make a huge difference in the temperature.

Dave

Some of the thrown material reaches Earth itself. It is travelling a lot slower than light, and it is electrically charged, so it gets pulled to the northern and southern magnetic poles where it causes...

Aurora!
http://www.weatherpaparazzi.com/Aurora.asp

If you want to schedule a trip to see them for yourself...
http://www.gedds.alaska.edu/AuroraForecast/

When did scientists first measure the distance to the sun and get a number right to within 25%, and how was it done?

Didn't some Grecian do it about 2000 years ago by measuring shadows? Some triangulation was involved. This is very sketchy, in know! I will hazard a guess and say Euclid did it.

Well, Eratosthenes did this thing involving shadows, and decided the sun was a few thousand miles away - and then some bright spark realized that the Earth was a sphere, not a plane, and that they had got the radius of the earth, not the distance to the sun...

http://outreach.as.utexas.edu/marykay/assignments/eratos1.html

Try again...

Earth isn't the only place to have aurora's - and charged particles from the sun aren't the only cause...

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap961018.html