Some amazing facts about the sun

Sun is the centre of our solar system and is responsible for the Earth’s climate and weather. The Sun is an almost perfect sphere with a difference of just 10km in diameter between the poles and the equator. The average radius of the Sun is 695,508 km (109.2 x that of the Earth) of which 20–25% is the core.The sun is by far the largest object in solar system. It holds 99.8 percent of the solar system’s mass and is roughly 109 times the diameter of the Earth — about one million Earths could fit inside the sun.

The visible part of the sun is about 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit (5,500 degrees Celsius), while temperatures in the core reach more than 27 million F (15 million C), driven by nuclear reactions. One would need to explode 100 billion tons of dynamite every second to match the energy produced by the sun, according to NASA.

Facts of the sun

• If a hollow Sun was filled up with spherical Earths then around 960,000 would fit inside. On the other hand if these Earths were 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.
• The mass of the Sun is approximately 330,000 times greater than that of Earth. It is almost three quarters Hydrogen, whilst most of the remaining mass is Helium.
• There is only a 10 kilometre difference in its polar diameter compared to its equatorial diameter. Considering the vast expanse of the Sun, this means it is the closest thing to a perfect sphere that has been observed in nature.
• At the Sun’s core, energy is generated by nuclear fusion, as Hydrogen converts to Helium. Because hot objects generally expand, the Sun would explode like a giant bomb if it weren’t for its enormous gravitational force. The temperature on the surface of the Sun is closer to 5,600 degrees Celsius.
• When all the Hydrogen has been burned, the Sun will continue for about 130 million more years, burning Helium, during which time it will expand to the point that it will engulf Mercury and Venus and the Earth. At this stage it will have become a red giant
• After its red giant phase, the Sun will collapse, retaining its enormous mass, but containing the approximate volume of our planet. When this happens, it will be called a white dwarf.
• With a mean average distance of 150 million kilometres from Earth and with light travelling at 300,000 kilometres per second, dividing one by the other gives us an approximate time of 500 seconds, or eight minutes and 20 seconds. Although this energy reaches Earth in a few minutes, it will already have taken millions of years to travel from the Sun’s core to its surface.
• The Sun is 24,000-26,000 light years from the galactic centre and it takes the Sun 225-250 million years to complete an orbit of the centre of the Milky Way.
•  Because the Earth travels on an elliptical orbit around the Sun, the distance between the two bodies varies from 147 to 152 million kilometres. The distance between the Earth and the Sun is called an Astronomical Unit (AU).
• At around 4.5 billion years old, the Sun has already burned off about half of its store of Hydrogen. It has enough left to continue to burn Hydrogen for approximately another 5 billion years. The Sun is currently a type of star known as a Yellow Dwarf
•  Solar flares occur when magnetic energy is released by the Sun during magnetic storms, which we see as sunspots. In sunspots, the magnetic lines are twisted and they spin, much like a tornado would on Earth.
• This is a stream of charged particles, which travels through the Solar System at approximately 450 kilometres per second. Solar wind occurs where the magnetic field of the Sun extends into space instead of following its surface.