The Sun
The Sun is the star at the centre of our Solar System. It is the source of almost all the light and heat on Earth. Just like all the other stars you can see, the Sun is a giant ball of gas—mostly hydrogen.
Facts About The Sun:
- The Sun is informally called a yellow dwarf but it actually appears white to the human eye.
- The Sun contains about 99.86% of the total mass of the Solar System.
- The Earth would fit inside the Sun about 1.3 million times.
- Heat from the Sun is created by nuclear fusion. It's like hundreds of nuclear bombs constantly exploding in the Sun's core. The fuel is hydrogen, which is converted (fused) into helium, releasing energy in the process.
- The Sun fuses 620 million tons of hydrogen every second. It's been doing this for 4.5 billion years and it has enough hydrogen to last about another 5 billion years.
- The Sun currently consists of 74.9% hydrogen, 23.8% helium, 1% oxygen + traces of other elements.
- The Sun's surface is not smooth. It's very active with gigantic flares forming writhing patterns, creating sunspots and shooting high-energy particles into space. Sunspots can last hours, weeks or months.
- The Sun rotates on its axis just like Earth. The Sun's "day" is about a month long (although it's complicated because it doesn't all rotate at the same speed). You can see sunspots on the surface move from day to day.
Classification: Star G2V
Names: Sun, Sol, Tamanui-te-rā
Distance: 1.50e+08 km (00 ly)Magnitude: -26.8400 (app) 4.8300 (abs)
Luminosity: 3.8460 W
Diameter: 1391000 km
Circumference: 4379000 km
Surface Temperature: 5778 K
Rotation period: 25.4 days (equatorial) 35 days (high latitude)
Angular Size: 32.70
Volume: 1.41e+18 km3
Density: 1.4080 g/cm3
Surface Area: 6090000000000 km2
Surface Gravity: 28.0000 g
Adjective: Solar
