The Sun is the source of energy for the solar system, which makes life possible on earth. All the objects in the solar system revolve around the Sun. It comprises of 99 percent of the mass of the solar system. It rotates slowly on its axis and revolves around the galaxy. The Sun is just a star like many other stars that are visible to us at night. It is because of its closeness to the earth that it appears much bigger and brighter that all the others. To know some more interesting and fun facts about the Sun, read on.
Interesting & Fun Facts about Sun
- The Sun is actually a star
- Sun is about 4 1/2 billion years old.
- Sun's mass is 2 x 1027 tonnes.
- The mean diameter of the Sun is 1.392×109 m
- Sun appears small, because it is 93 million miles away from Earth.
- Sun was formed, like every other star, from a huge swirling cloud of gas called a nebula. The cloud contained all the matter which went together to form the sun and the solar system.
- Proxima Centauri is the closest star around the sun, at a distance of 4.3 light years.
- Light from Sun takes about 8 minutes to reach Earth
- Sun is made of hot gases, containing hydrogen, helium, calcium, sodium, magnesium, and iron. About 75% of sun is hydrogen, the rest is mostly helium.
- The effective surface temperature of the Sun is 5778K.
- Temperature of Sun’s Corona is 5x106 K.
- Temperature at core of the Sun is 15.7×106 K
- At the centre of the Sun, hydrogen nuclei fuse into helium, releasing the energy upon which we depend.
- Just as the planets orbit around the Sun, in the same way, Sun orbits around the centre of the Milky Way galaxy, taking 225,000,000 years to complete a full orbit, traveling at 800,000 kilometers per hour.
- If we could remove the bright, glowing surface of the Sun, we would see nothing other than blackness. Only the Sun's outer surface shines brightly, while its inside is complete darkness.
- Without Sun, life on earth would not exist. Our planet would be a frozen dark ball, drifting dead in space.
- If Sun was a hollow ball, you could fit about one million earths inside it!
- Sun is almost half-way through its life and at its most stable point in its lifetime. Eventually, it will increase in size, eating up the Inner Planets and heating up the Outer Planets and their moons, before collapsing to become a very small White Dwarf.
