Facts About the Sun

The Sun, one of the most vital reasons of why we are living on this Earth. Our Sun is one of the 200 billion stars in our Milky Way galaxy and it is also the closest one to the Earth. It is situated at the center of the Solar System and has a diameter of 1,392,000 kilometers. This figure sums up to about 109 Earths. To add to this, there is a space for 1.3 million Earths in the interior of the Sun, if it were a hollow sphere. When the mass of the Solar System was calculated or determined, it was found that the Sun constitutes about 99.86% of the total mass. What remains, is accounted by the planets, meteoroids, comets and dust in the orbit. Photosphere is the name attributed to the surface of the sun and the temperature of this surface is about 5,778 K (5,505 °C).

Important Facts About the Sun

The energy which the Sun emits is created deep within its core and nuclear fusion is what is responsible for the Sun to emit energy as much as 1.74 x 1017 Joules of energy, per second. Here the temperature is a whooping 13,600,000 kelvins (13,599,726.8 °C). This energy takes a million years to travel from the core to the Sun's surface.

Every second, 700 million tons of hydrogen gets converted into helium ash. This process results in the emission of 5 million tons of energy. With this process on the run, the Sun is becoming lighter as time goes on.

For Sunlight to travel from the Sun to the Earth, it takes about 8 minutes and 19 seconds. Given this fact, when you see the sun setting, it actually happened 8 minutes and 19 seconds ago. 149.6 million kilometers (1 AU) is the approximate mean distance of the Sun from the Earth and 25,000 light-years is the distance from the galactic core of our galaxy (the Milky Way).

The Earth spends a span of 365 days revolving around the Sun and the period of actual rotation of the Sun is approximately 25.6 days at the equator and 33.5 days at the poles. The reason the Sun rotates faster at the equator is due to its plasmatic and not solid state. This behavior or phenomenon of the Sun is termed as differential rotation.

Among the many important facts about the presence of the sun is one related to its age and when will it die. The Sun, by now, is considered to have lived half of its life and thus, is known to be middle-aged. Its birth took place about 4,500,000,000 years ago and there are still a few more billions years to go before the Sun dies. When this giant star grows up to 7 billion years old, it will start becoming cooler and bigger. Upon reaching an age of 10 billion years, it will mark its transition into the red giant phase and eventually end up as a white dwarf.

Although the Sun may appear yellow, it is actually white. The yellow appearance of the Sun comes from the atmospheric scattering. The Sun is a composition of hydrogen (73.46%), helium (24.85%) and elements such as oxygen, carbon, iron, sulfur, neon, nitrogen, silicon and magnesium in minimal amounts.

Sunspots are areas on the photosphere of the Sun that appear darker than their surroundings and some of these may be as large as 50,000 miles in diameter. These areas appear darker because of their relatively lower temperatures. The reason they have lower temperatures is the fact that intense magnetic activity in these regions inhibit convection. This reduces the energy that is transported from the hot interior to the surface.

Some Quick Facts

Owing to the massive mass of the Sun (1.9891 x 1030kg = 332,900 x Earth) and its radius (695,000 km), the gravitational pull on its surface is about 28 times stronger than that of the Earth. So, if you are weighing 60 kg on the Earth, then on the Sun your weight would become 1680 kg. Imagine what would the weight of an elephant be?

If you were on the Sun, then in order to escape its gravitational pull, you would need to traverse with an escape velocity of 617.5 km/s. One fun fact about the Sun is that only 55% of all Americans know that the sun is a star.

The Sun takes a period of 225 million years to make one orbit around the center of the Milky Way. This period of time taken by the Sun is known as a cosmic year.

Apart from the heat and light that the Sun emits, it also releases what is known as the solar wind. This is a stream of charged particles, mostly, electrons and protons. These particles can escape the Sun's gravitational pull, owing to their high kinetic energy.

The description provided above is just a tiny part of the immense findings and research done on the star for decades. There is no end to what we can know and find out about this giant shinning globe. No matter how much you know about it, it would still have something to surprise and amaze you, just like the wide open space!