No one can image his existence without sun. Life revolves around it. Sun seems to us a huge ball of fire. We experience different seasons just because of sun. Ancient people used to worship the sun considering it god. There is nothing wrong in saying that sun is the power house of Earth. Humans get so busy in daily routines that they forget to appreciate beautiful things surrounding them like sun. Take some time from your busy day and read these interesting facts about sun.

Do You Know These Fun Facts about Sun?

How old is The Sun

It is completely normal to think that the sun is billions of years old. Sun is more than 4.5 billion years old. According to scientist, sun was formed when a cloud of dust started to accumulate heat. It is mainly composed of helium and hydrogen gases.

Largest Star

The largest star in our solar system is sun. It comprises over 99.8 percent mass of solar system.

Close to Earth

The closest star to Earth is sun. Proxima Centauri is the second closest star to earth located 4.2 light years away from earth.

How far is Earth from the Sun?

The distance between earth and the sun is 0.000015853 light years.

Sun’s Rotation

Sun rotates once on its own axis after 27 earth days.

How long will the sun continue to shine?

You may think that sun will die soon because it is an aged star now. However, there are estimates regarding this assumption according to which the sun has capability to shine for another 5 billion years.

Time Light Takes to Reach the Earth

It takes light 8 minutes to reach earth from the sun.

Largest Supplier of Energy

Astrophysicist believed that almost all energy provided to earth is by sun. No doubt it is the center of solar system.

Elements in the Sun

Though the sun is 74 percent hydrogen and 24 percent helium but the sun contain other elements also like carbon, neon, oxygen, iron.

Stars bigger than Sun

Isn’t it surprising? There are many stars in galaxy that are bigger and brighter than the sun. But we cannot see them because they are far away from Earth.

Sun is an English word

The word sun is originated from the word “Sunne”. The Latin word for sun is “Sol” from which the word solar system is derived.

Diameter

The diameter of sun is 190 times more than that of Earth. It shows the diameter of sun is 1.391016 million kilometer.

How many Earths can fit in the Sun?

The sun is so large that hundreds of earth like planets can fit inside it. Sun can fit 1,300,000 planets inside it at the same time.

Core of Sun

The central part of the sun responsible for generating energy is called core.

Sun’s Gravitational Force

Sun’s gravitational force is 28 times more powerful than that of Earth. Without the gravitational force of the sun the planets in the solar system will fly off into space.

Star Type

The stars in our solar system are of certain type. The sun is yellow Dwarf type of star.

Weight of Sun

Definitely, the huge fire ball is much heavier than our Earth. The weight of 330,060 Earths would be equal to one sun. It means the weight of sun is 1,989,100,000,000,000,000,000 billion kilograms.

Planets in Solar System

There are eight planets in our solar system. However, as a kid many of us had studied that there are nine planets but Pluto is a small planet which is now classified as Dwarf Planet.

Symmetry of Solar Eclipse

Have you ever wondered why the symmetry of solar eclipse is so perfect? It is because the sun is 400 times bigger and also 400 times farther from the moon. Due to which the shape of eclipse seems perfect.

Layers of Sun

There are seven layers of sun. The three inner layers core, Radiative zone, Convection zone while the outer layers are photosphere, Chromosphere, transition region and corona.

Who discovered it

Well, life exists just because of sun. There is no specific date for its discovery. It sounds weird also because life didn’t exists before its formation. It is always there so no one needed to discover it. However, other planets in solar system have specific discovery dates.

State of Matter

Are you curious to know the state of matter present in the sun. All this matter is in gaseous state, mostly plasma.

Speed of Rotation

The speed of rotation of sun varies from equator to pole. It rotates fastest at the equator and the speed is comparatively slow on the poles.

Atmosphere of Sun

There are three areas that constitute the atmosphere of sun. These are solar corona, Chromosphere, and Photosphere.

How Sunlight is produced?

In our science books we have read that there are four types of nuclear reactions e.g. Fusion, Fission, Nuclear decay and transmutation. Sunlight is produced as a result of fusion nuclear reactions taking pace in the sun. Firstly gamma rays are formed as product of reaction, which on billions of collision with matter reaches the surface of sun. Thus escape into the space.

How hot is the Corona of the Sun

The outer atmosphere of sun is known as Corona. There the temperature can extend from thousand to million kelvins.

Sun emit two types of Radiations

Sun emit particle radiations like electron, alpha particles, protons etc. and electromagnetic radiations (which are photons).

Life of Massive Stars

The more massive a star is the sooner it will die. Short stars tend to have long life. Massive star die soon because the rate at which it burns its fuel is higher.

Visible Part

What we see from Earth is the visible part of Sun known as photosphere.

Sunspots

No we are not talking about the one that appear on our skin due to exposure to sunlight. The sun has sunspots on its surface. These spots are formed by sun’s magnetic field emitting its surface. These areas become cooler and dark. Scientist named these areas as sunspots.

Hottest part of Sun

Core is the blazing hot part of sun. The temperature in the core is 28, 080, 000 degrees Fahrenheit. That’s pretty hot.

Sun God

Ancient Egyptians used to worship sun god called Ra.

Tonatiuh God

Aztecs civilization belonging to America used to offer human sacrifices to sun god called Tonatiuh. They thought that sun would not shine if they stop offering sacrifices.

Sol Invictus

Roman worshipped sun god named Sol Invictus.

Greek’s Sun God

Greek’s used to call sun as Helios.

Looking at Sun

Don’t look at the sun directly because it can damage your eyes permanently.

Solar Wind

Sun not only emit light and heat but also emit streams of charged particles which are named as solar wind.

Moon’s light is actually due to reflection

Only stars emit light while other bodies in space doesn’t give light. Similarly moon’s light is actually the reflection of sunlight from its surface.

Sun move across the sky

The ancients believe that the sun rises in the east move across the sky and the sets in the west. They didn’t know that this phenomena is due to the rotation of earth on its own axis.

Radiative Zone of Sun

The core of sun is surrounded by the radiative zone. The energy produced by the core is transported by the radiative zone.

Corona Atmosphere is Visible Sometimes

There are two possible scenario where we can see corona of sun clearly. One in misty weather conditions and the other during solar eclipse.

Stonehenge used to worship Sun

Many people believed that Stonehenge were used to worship the sun.

Aristarchus’s Discovery

Aristarchus was an ancient Greek astronomer. At that time people believed that sun rotates around the earth. But Aristarchus first time explained that Earth rotate around the sun.

Shape of Sun

The shape of sun is close to a perfect sphere.

Chromosphere is much hotter than sun’s surface

Well, it is hard to believe that the surface of sun is less hot than chromosphere (atmosphere above the sun’s surface). The temperature can reach to 100,000 kelvins at the surface while in chromosphere it is 1 million kelvins.

Tattoos of the Sun

The ancient mummies of male and female found in Libya have tattoos of the sun on their bodies. This shows that they either worshiped the sun or their civilization used to praise the sun very much.

Sunlight Phobia.

A fear of seeing anything bright like the sun or sunlight is called Heliophobia. Isaac Newton has sunlight phobia.

Sunlight contain many colors

Sunlight contain seven different colors. Isaac Newton was the first to observe the sunlight with the help of prism in 1666.

Pluto’s Rotation around the sun

Pluto take hundreds (248) of years to complete just one rotation around the sun.

America’s Flag on Moon

America’s flag placed on moon is now turned to completely white flag due to harsh radiation coming from the sun.

Wolf Number

A method developed by Johann Rudolf Wolf to count the number of sunspots on the sun is called wolf number.

Who studied the Sun first?

In 1974, Skylab was the first space station launched by NASA to study the sun.

Earth’s core Temparature

Would you believe that the core of our Earth has temperature equal to the sun’s core?

Weight of the Sun

OMG, you will be shocked to know the weight of the sun. It is a huge number-4,385,214,857,119,399,823,317,774,893,056 pounds.

Sun will eat the Earth

According to scientist, once all the hydrogen on the sun would burn up. The sun will engulf the Earth, Mercury, and Venus. After consuming these planets it will become a red giant ball.

Theory of Gravity helped understanding Solar System

Sir Isaac Newton presented the theory of gravity. Before this theory there were many confusions regarding the solar system.

Sun Sound

Yes! That’s right. Sun produce a specific sound waves. The wavelength of these sound waves is very short.

Coronagraph

A telescope especially designed to observe corona surrounding the sun is called Coronagraph. The lens of the telescope block the sun rays without which it becomes easy to study things related to the sun.

How much time will it take to reach the sun?

It will take years to travel to the sun on a normal airline. If your plane fly at a speed of 644km/h without any stay then you will reach the sun in 20 years.

Beautiful Happenings in Space

Solar winds from sun cause beautiful phenomena in space like Northern Lights and Tails of Comets.

Do you know some more amazing fun facts about the sun. Drop them in the comments please!