One million Earths could fit inside the Sun:
If an empty Sun was packed with spherical Earths, almost 960,000 would fit inside. If the Earths were smashed inside without any space, more than 1,250,000 would fit inside.
The Sun will one day be about the size of Earth:
After the red giant stage, the Sun will collapse, maintaining its mass, but holding the approximate volume of Earth. At this point the Sun will be a white dwarf.
The Sun contains 99.86% of the mass in the Solar System:
The mass of the Sun is approximately 330,000 times greater than the mass of Earth. 3/4 Hydrogen, and almost 1/4 Helium.
The Sun is an almost perfect sphere:
There is only 10 kilometers difference in the polar diameter and the equatorial diameter. This is the closest thing to a perfect sphere that has been observed in nature.
Light from the Sun takes eight minutes to reach Earth:
With an average distance of 150 million kilometers from Earth and with light moving at 300,000 kilometers per second, dividing one by the other gives us an approximate time of 500 seconds, or eight minutes and 20 seconds. This light reaches Earth in a few minutes, it will already have taken millions of years to travel the the Sun's surface from the core.
The Sun is middle-aged:
At around 4.5 billion years old, the Sun has already burned off about half of its store of Hydrogen. It has enough left to continue to burn Hydrogen for approximately another 5 billion years. The Sun is currently Yellow Dwarf star.
The Sun has a very strong magnetic field:
Solar flares occur when magnetic energy is released by the Sun during magnetic storms.
The temperature inside the Sun can reach 15 million degrees Celsius:
At the Sun’s core, energy is generated by nuclear fusion, as Hydrogen converts to Helium. Because hot objects generally expand, the Sun would explode like a giant bomb if it weren’t for its enormous gravitational force.
If an empty Sun was packed with spherical Earths, almost 960,000 would fit inside. If the Earths were smashed inside without any space, more than 1,250,000 would fit inside.
The Sun will one day be about the size of Earth:
After the red giant stage, the Sun will collapse, maintaining its mass, but holding the approximate volume of Earth. At this point the Sun will be a white dwarf.
The Sun contains 99.86% of the mass in the Solar System:
The mass of the Sun is approximately 330,000 times greater than the mass of Earth. 3/4 Hydrogen, and almost 1/4 Helium.
The Sun is an almost perfect sphere:
There is only 10 kilometers difference in the polar diameter and the equatorial diameter. This is the closest thing to a perfect sphere that has been observed in nature.
Light from the Sun takes eight minutes to reach Earth:
With an average distance of 150 million kilometers from Earth and with light moving at 300,000 kilometers per second, dividing one by the other gives us an approximate time of 500 seconds, or eight minutes and 20 seconds. This light reaches Earth in a few minutes, it will already have taken millions of years to travel the the Sun's surface from the core.
The Sun is middle-aged:
At around 4.5 billion years old, the Sun has already burned off about half of its store of Hydrogen. It has enough left to continue to burn Hydrogen for approximately another 5 billion years. The Sun is currently Yellow Dwarf star.
The Sun has a very strong magnetic field:
Solar flares occur when magnetic energy is released by the Sun during magnetic storms.
The temperature inside the Sun can reach 15 million degrees Celsius:
At the Sun’s core, energy is generated by nuclear fusion, as Hydrogen converts to Helium. Because hot objects generally expand, the Sun would explode like a giant bomb if it weren’t for its enormous gravitational force.