Length of Dates in Excel

[Deborah84]

I am taking the Google Data Analytics course.  In one of our exercises, we have to find the length of a date/time, find the space within it, and display the characters following the space.  The data is in the following format in the spreadsheet: 

2017-09-01 00:02:01

=LEN(2017-09-01 00:02:01) should be 19, but it is coming up 15.  After an hour of research, I discovered that Excel converts dates to a serial number based on a starting date of either January 1, 1900 or January 1, 1904.  That's a problem because then there is no space, so

=FIND(" ", 2017-09-01 00:02:01) returns #VALUE.

That also means I cannot return the characters after the space because Excel doesn't recognize the space.

How can I prevent Excel from turning the date/time into a serial number with no spaces?  I just want it to look at the date as it is displayed?  Thanks!

[#2]

@Deborah84 

FIND() works.

=FIND(" ","2017-09-01 00:02:01")

[#3]

@Deborah84 

The characters following the space are the time part of the date/time.

Let's say 2017-09-01 00:02:01 is in cell D2.

The time part is returned by the formula =MOD(D2, 1)

You'll have to format the cell with the formula as time.

If you want the result in the form of text, use =TEXT(D2, "hh:mm:ss")