[shardling]

This is at the closest pass, when Mars is ~0.5 AU away from the earth; that's 4 light minutes.

It takes 13 minutes from light to get to Mars from the sun, and I think that'll also work out to be close to the "average" time from Earth to Mars.

In any case, you're right that apparently the demo exceeds the speed of light at some point, because it doesn't last for 4 minutes. Someone else suggests that the motion be interpreted as a fast pan rather than a physical motion, which is how this should have been implemented to not contradict the laws of physics. :)