Sun, Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto … all uniquely spectacular. The Earth is located 93 million miles (150 million kms) away from the Sun. Sunlight takes around 8 minutes to reach the earth. The closer the planet is to the Sun, the quicker is its annual orbit around our star (Mercury takes 88 days). Scientists now estimate that there may be as many as 100 billion solar systems in our own Milky Way galaxy, alone.