Last updated on July 23rd, 2021
Culture and myth about the Sun
1. Many ancient cultures worshiped the sun as a deity (Egyptian, Indo-European, and Meso-American.)[49]
2. A scientist and philosopher from modern-day Turkey called Anaxagoras was the first to suggest that the sun is a star, around 450 BC.[50]
3. Our modern day calendar is based on the earth’s movement around the sun.[51]
Facts about its age
4. It is 4.5 billion years old.[52]
5. It is a relatively young star, part of a generation known as Population I.[53]
6. It is about halfway through its lifetime.[54]
Facts about its size
7. You can fit 1.3 million earths into it.[54]
8. It is the largest object in the solar system.[53]
9. Its mass is 333,000 times that of the earth.[6]
10. It occupies about 99.86 percent of the total mass of the solar system.[53]
Facts about the distance of Sun from Earth
11. It is closer to earth than all other stars.[7]
12. It is approximately 391 times as far away from earth as the moon.[8]
13. Its distance from the earth changes at different points during the year.[35]
14. It is 30,000 light years away from the center of The Milky Way.[6]
15. Light from the sun takes eight minutes and twenty seconds to reach the earth.[36]
Facts about Solar System
16. The sun’s gravity anchors earth and all the other planets together in a small space called the solar system.[37]
17. The sun is at the center of the solar system and all planets orbit around it.[38]
18. If the sun weren’t there, the earth would travel in a straight line.[39]
19. Its gravity is 28 times stronger than earth’s gravity.[40]
20. The bubble that surrounds the sun and solar system is called the heliosphere.[41]
21. Helioseismology is the study of the interior of the sun.[16]
22. The sun is studied using many satellites, the main one being the SOHO (Solar and Heliospheric Observatory)[17]
23. One million earths would make up 0.00033% of all the stars in the Milky Way.[18]
Facts about Sun’s energy
24. There are electric currents inside of it that generate a magnetic field which spreads throughout the solar system.[22]
25. A geomagnetic storm is a worldwide disturbance of the earth’s magnetic field as a result of solar activity.[23]
26. The sun produces energy that supports all life on earth through a process known as photosynthesis.[24]
27. Its energy is produced from the fusion of hydrogen into helium.[25]
28. Its temperature is approximately between 5500 and 6000 degrees Celsius.[19]
29. Nuclear reactions occur within the core of the sun, due to its temperature and pressure.[4]
30. It emits three different kinds of energy; infrared radiation, visible light, and ultraviolet light.[5]
31. The ozone layer absorbs most of the sun’s harmful ultraviolet rays which cause sun burns.[9]
32. The suns UV rays also have antiseptic properties.[10]
33. The process by which energy moves from the sun to the earth is known as radiation.[11]
34. The heat and energy released from the core of the sun take a million years to reach its surface.[42]
35. When magnetic energy that has been building up in the sun’s atmosphere is suddenly released, it causes a rapid variation in brightness known as a solar flare.[43]
36. The amount of energy released during a flare is equivalent to a simultaneous explosion of millions of 100-megaton hydrogen bombs.[27]
37. This explosion is ten million times greater than a volcanic eruption but less than 1/10th of the total energy emitted by the sun per second.[27]
Facts about Sun’s appearance
38. The sun is actually a mixture of ALL colors, which appears to the eye as white.[32]
39. It seems to be several different colors during the day due to a phenomenon known as atmospheric scattering.[33]
40. A green flash is a short lived optical illusion that sometimes occurs at sunrise or sunset when the light from the sun is bent towards the viewer.[34]
41. It is as bright as 4 trillion trillion 100-watt light bulbs.[6]
42. The Sun does not have any rings.[44]
43. Partial solar eclipses are dangerous to the naked eye because our pupils are not accustomed to that level of contrast in light.[45]
44. The sun is the closest thing to a perfect sphere that has been observed in nature.[14]
45. Some parts of the sun are cooler than others and thus appear to be darker. They are called sunspots.[15]
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