FACTS ABOUT THE SUN
The Sun accounts for
99.86% of the mass
in the solar system.
It has a mass of
around 330,000 times
that of Earth. It is
three quarters
hydrogen and most
of its remaining mass
is helium.
Over one million
Earth’s could fit
inside the Sun. If you
were to fill a hollow
Sun with spherical
Earths, somewhere
around 960,000
would fit inside.
However, if you
squashed those
Earths to ensure
there was no wasted
space then you could
fit 1,300,000 Earths
inside the Sun. The
surface area of the
Sun is 11,990 times
that of Earth.
One day the Sun will
consume the Earth.
The Sun will continue
to burn for about
130 million years
after it burns
through all of its
hydrogen, instead
burning helium.
During this time it will
expand to such a size
that it will engulf
Mercury, Venus, and
Earth. When it
reaches this point, it
will have become a
red giant star.
The energy created
by the Sun’s core is
nuclear fusion. This
huge amount of
energy is produced
when four hydrogen
nuclei are combined
into one helium
nucleus.
The Sun is almost a
perfect sphere.
Considering the
sheer size of the
Sun, there is only a
10 km difference in
its polar and
equatorial diameters
– this makes it the
closest thing to a
perfect sphere
observed in nature.
The Sun is travelling
at 220 km per
second. It is around
24,000-26,000 light-
years from the
galactic centre and it
takes the Sun
approximately
225-250 million years
to complete one orbit
of the centre of the
Milky Way.
The Sun will
eventually be about
the size of Earth.
Once the Sun has
completed its red
giant phase, it will
collapse. It’s huge
mass will be retained,
but it will have a
volume similar to that
of Earth. When that
happens, it will be
known as a white
dwarf.
It takes eight
minutes for light
reach Earth from the
Sun. The average
distance from the
Sun to the Earth is
about 150 million km.
Light travels at
300,000 km per
second so dividing
one by the other
gives you 500
seconds – eight
minutes and twenty
seconds. This energy
can reach Earth in
mere minutes, but it
takes millions of
years to travel from
the Sun’s core to its
surface.
The Sun is halfway
through its life. At
4.5 billion years old,
the Sun has burned
off around half of its
hydrogen stores and
has enough left to
continue burning
hydrogen for
another 5 billion
years. Currently the
Sun is a yellow dwarf
star.
The distance
between Earth and
Sun changes. This is
because the Earth
travels on a elliptical
orbit path around
the Sun. The distance
between the two
ranges from 147 to
152 million km. This
distance between
them is one
Astronomical Unit
(AU).
The Sun rotates in
the opposite
direction to Earth
with the Sun rotating
from west to east
instead of east to
west like Earth.
The Sun rotates
more quickly at its
equator than it does
close to its poles. This
is known as
differential rotation.
The Sun has a
powerful magnetic
field. When magnetic
energy is released by
the Sun during
magnetic storms,
solar flares occur
which we see on
Earth as sunspots.
Sunspots are dark
areas on the Sun’s
surface caused by
magnetic variations.
The reason they
appear dark is due to
their temperature
being much lower
than surrounding
areas.
Temperatures inside
the Sun can reach 15
million degrees
Celsius. Energy is
generated through
nuclear fusion in the
Sun’s core – this is
when hydrogen
converts to helium –
and because objects
generally expand,
the Sun would
explode like an
enormous bomb if it
wasn’t for it’s
tremendous
gravitational pull.
The Sun generates
solar winds. These
are ejections of
plasma (extremely
hot charged
particles) that
originate in the layer
of the Sun know as
the corona and they
can travel through
the solar system at
up to 450 km per
second.
The atmosphere of
the Sun is composed
of three layers : the
photosphere, the
chromosphere, and
the corona.
The Sun is classified
as a yellow dwarf
star . It is a main
sequence star with
surface
temperatures
between 5,000 and
5,700 degrees celsius
(9,000 and 10,300
degrees fahrenheit).
The Aurora Borealis
and Aurora Australis
are caused by the
interaction of solar
winds with Earth’s