General Knowledge

Top 10 Facts About the Sun

October 2, 2019

Nowadays, the fact the Earth revolved around the Sun is common scientific knowledge. Before the findings of Galileo and Copernicus in the 1500s, most people believed that the rest of the solar system actually revolved around the Earth. Although Nicolaus Copernicus made his theory in 1543, it took years and years for this to be accepted by the masses.

However, other scientists and astronomers had made similar theories in the years past. An Indian philosopher, Yajnavalkya, recorded such a heliocentric theory as far back as the 9^th Century BCE. Greek philosophers Aristarchus and Archimedes both made mention of similar theories

in 310 BC or earlier. Throughout the years, the Sun has been much more than just a star in the sky. The Sun has been an object of worship, and an object of fear, and the source of all life on Earth. While it is technically a ball of hydrogen, plasma, and helium- it’s definitely much more than that. The Sun is an interesting part of life on Earth, even though it is millions of miles away from the planet.

Much of the scientific knowledge now accepted about the Sun has been discovered relatively recently, including some incredible and unbelievable facts. In the end, the Sun is the crowning jewel of our solar system, and the one thing holding all of the planets, stars, and asteroids around Earth in one cohesive system. It’s not just essential for us humans here on this planet, but also for the rest of the planets in the solar system.

10The Sun Is a Star

The Sun Is a Star and it contains all of these elements from a handful of previous stars.

9The Sun Is Not That Big

The Sun Is Not That Big. It has a relative size in nature.

The Sun is really massive in some ways but really tiny in other ways. Size is relative in most contexts, but this is an especially important consideration when discussing astronomy. The Earth is tiny in the grand scheme of our galaxy, yet it is quite massive to us humans who are here living on it. Compared to Earth, the Sun is enormous- almost too big to fathom. Over a million planet Earths could be fit inside the space of the Sun.

Not to mention, the Sun is the biggest object in our entire solar system. It is responsible for most of the mass in the solar system, 99.86%, even though there are also 8 other planets. Interestingly enough, the shape of the Sun is a perfect sphere- or, at least the closest thing to a perfect sphere that has ever been observed in nature. The radius of the star is a whopping 696,000 kilometers. 109 Earths could be lined up around the surface of the Sun.

However, on the other hand, the Sun is actually quite small compared to some other stars and objects outside of our solar system. Considering the sizes of other stars in the Milky Way, the Sun can only be considered a medium-sized star. NASA even says that they have found stars over 100 times bigger than our Sun- that’s an unbelievable amount bigger than our tiny little Earth! However, scientists also explain that it’s very difficult to get a measure of the exact size of the star.