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Sun Facts

Sun Facts
At the center of our solar system lies the sun. It is made up of hot plasma and magnetic fields and is almost a perfect sphere. It is so massive that it accounts for 99.86% of all the mass in our solar system. It is believed that the sun was formed approximately 4.6 billion years ago when there was a gravitational collapse in a molecular cloud. The sun is the closest star to the earth, and also the brightest object in the earth's sky. It takes slightly more than 8 minutes for the light of the sun to reach the earth. Even as recently as the 1800s, scientists did not know what the sun was made of or what its source of energy was. Much is still a mystery today.
Interesting Sun Facts:
The word 'sun' is believed to be derived from the Old English word 'sunne'.
The sun is responsible for the weather and the climate on earth.
The sun's radius is approximately 695,508 km. This is equal to 109.2 times the earth's radius.
The circumference at the sun's equator is 4,370.005.6 km.
The sun weighs 1,989,100,000,000,000,000,000 kg. This is equal to 333,060 times earth's mass.
The sun has a surface area that is 11,990 times that of the earth.
The temperature on the surface of the sun is 5500 degrees Celsius. The internal core temperature is believed to reach 15 million degrees Celsius.
The sun's heat at its core is driven by nuclear reactions.
The sun takes up to 250 million years to orbit the Milky Way's center.
The sun travels at a speed of 220km each second.
If it were possible, you could fit 1 million planet earths inside the sun. It is believed that one day the sun will consume Mercury, Venus and the earth.
Today the sun is considered a yellow dwarf, but once it has consumed the planets and collapsed it will be called a white dwarf (except the earth will be gone so there won't be anyone around to call it anything).
The sun has already used up half of its hydrogen stores. Don't worry - it still has approximately 5 billion years of hydrogen left to burn.
Almost all life on earth is supported by the sun through photosynthesis.
Some cultures recognize the sun as a deity because of its significance to life on earth.
The sun is plasma and not solid, it rotates slower at its poles than it does at its equator.
It is believed that the sun may have formed from the shockwaves a supernova.
There are more than 100 billion stars in the Milky Way and the sun is only one of these.
The solar activity of the sun can cause changes and disruptions in radio communication on earth, as well as to electric power.
It is believed that magnetic instabilities on the sun may be responsible for ice ages on earth.
The surface temperature on the sun is increasing and eventually it will be so hot on earth that our water will evaporate (not for about another one billion years).


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