Sun - Facts
1. The Sun is the Solar System
We live on the planet, so we think it’s an equal member of the Solar System. But that couldn’t be further from the truth. The reality is that the mass of the Sun accounts for 99.8% of the mass of the Solar System. And most of that final 0.2% comes from Jupiter. So the mass of the Earth is a fraction of a fraction of the mass of the Solar System. Really, we barely exist.2. And the Sun is mostly hydrogen and helium
If you could take apart the Sun and pile up its different elements, you’d find that 74% of its mass comes from hydrogen. with 24% helium. The remaining 2% is includes trace amounts of iron, nickel, oxygen, and all the other elements we have in the Solar System. In other words, the Solar System is mostly made of hydrogen.
If you could take apart the Sun and pile up its different elements, you’d find that 74% of its mass comes from hydrogen. with 24% helium. The remaining 2% is includes trace amounts of iron, nickel, oxygen, and all the other elements we have in the Solar System. In other words, the Solar System is mostly made of hydrogen.
3. The Sun is pretty bright.
We know of some amazingly large and bright stars, like Eta Carina and Betelgeuse. But they’re incredibly far away. Our own Sun is a relatively bright star. If you could take the 50 closest stars within 17 light-years of the Earth, the Sun would be the 4th brightest star in absolute terms. Not bad at all.4. The Sun is heating up, and will kill all life on Earth
It feels like the Sun has been around forever, unchanging, but that’s not true. The Sun is actually slowly heating up. It’s becoming 10% more luminous every billion years. In fact, within just a billion years, the heat from the Sun will be so intense that liquid water won’t exist on the surface of the Earth. Life on Earth as we know it will be gone forever. Bacteria might still live on underground, but the surface of the planet will be scorched and uninhabited. It’ll take another 7 billion years for the Sun to reach its red giant phase before it actually expands to the point that it engulfs the Earth and destroys the entire planet.5. One million Earths could fit inside the Sun.
A hollow Sun would fit around 960,000 spherical Earths. If squished inside with no wasted space, then around 1,300,000 would fit inside. The Sun’s surface area is 11,990 times that of the Earth’s.
6. The Sun will one day be about the size of Earth.
After its red giant phase, the Sun will collapse. It will keep its enormous mass with the approximate volume of our planet. When this happens, it will have become a white dwarf.
7. It takes light 8 minutes to reach the Earth.
Its mean distance from the Earth is equivalent to 8 minutes and 19 seconds at the speed of light. In other words, they're 92,955,807 miles (149,597,870 kilometers) apart;
8. 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.