Age : 4.6 billion years
Type : Yellow Dwarf (G2V)
Composition : Hydrogen 92%, Helium 7%,
Diameter : 1.4 million kilometers (870,000 miles)
Surface temperature : 5500 centigrade
Temperature at core : 13600000 degrees Celsius
Distance from Earth : 150 million kilometers (93 million miles)
Rotating direction : west to east.
Shape : Sphere
Mass : 1,989,100,000,000,000,000,000 billion kgs or 333,060 Earths.
Self-luminous bodies are called stars. Sun is called a star because it is a huge burning sphere. It is the center of our solar system and all planets are rotating around it. It is in the distance of 150 million kilometers (93 million miles) away from the earth. The sunlight takes 8 minutes 20 seconds to reach earth. It is composed of three parts. The photosphere, chromosphere and solar corona. The core temperature is 15 million centigrade. The nearest star after sun is Proxima Centauri.
- Nearly one million earths could fit inside the sun. It has another name sol which is originated from the ancient Roman’s god. It contains 99.8% of the total mass in the solar system and 24,000 to 26,000 light years from the galactic centre. It takes 225 to 250 million years to complete an orbit around the centre of the milky way.
- Because of the Earth orbits in elliptical shape, the distance between earth and the sun varies from 147 to 152 million kilometers. The distance between the Earth and the Sun is called an Astronomical Unit (AU).
- Nuclear fusion is reason for the solar energy.
- Many ancient people worshipped the sun as god. It rotates in the opposite direction of earth’s direction. While earth rotating from east to west, it is rotating from west to east.
- It weights 1,989,100,000,000,000,000,000 billion kgs. This is 99.86% of the total mass of our Solar System.
- When all the Hydrogen has been burned, he 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.