The sun is an essential component of most life on Earth. Without solar energy, vegetation would not grow, and without vegetation, animals would not have a source of food.
As our scientific knowledge begin to increase, we understand that the Earth is only part of a larger structure that we know as the Solar System. We also found that while other planets in the solar system may not have life, they are greatly influenced by the sun.
The distance of the earth from the sun
It is time for some fairly large numbers. The Earth is approximately 150 million kilometers from the Sun.
First the mass, then …
As they say, mass first, then sculpture. The mass of the sun is over 330,000 times that of our planet. Moreover, it accounts for about 99.86% of the total mass of the solar system.
Eclipse
This unique phenomenon occurs when the Moon is between the Sun and Earth. The perfect symmetry that then takes place in the sky is related to the distance of the Moon from the Sun. The Sun is over 400 times the size of the Moon, but it is also 400 times the size of the Earth, which makes the two bodies look exactly the same in the sky. We will have to wait a while for the next solar eclipse visible in Poland. On July 13, 2075, an annular eclipse will be observed in our country, and on October 7, 2135, a total eclipse.
How old is the sun?
Generally, quite a lot – around 4.567 billion years.
How was the sun formed?
To put it very simply, this star was formed as a result of the collapse of a part of the molecular cloud. A fairly large amount of matter was concentrated in one place, creating a young star. A little further from it was the material of the protoplanet, from which planets were formed later in the process of creating the solar system.
Aristarchus of Samos
He is the first astronomer to present the theory that the Sun is the center of our solar system, and that the Earth and other planets move around its orbit. This happened in the 3rd century BC.
Passengers, Earthlings
Whether we live on Earth, whether we like it or not, we are all its passengers. Traveling on this “ship” we are transported around the sun at an average speed of 107 182.3018 km / h.
What color is the sun?
Each child drawing the Sun on a piece of paper will use a yellow crayon. It is in this color that we see them in the sky. However, the sun is not yellow at all. The light from the star is a mixture of electromagnetic radiation in different colors – the most being green. Astronauts on the International Space Station see the Sun with a white color.
In far future…
The sun will stop shining. Scientists estimate that in about five billion years the star will run out of its hydrogen and helium reserves, thereby turning into a giant red star. As a result, Mercury, Venus, and maybe even our planet will be swallowed.
Size comparison
If the sun were the size of a beach ball, Jupiter would be a golf ball and Earth would be as small as a pea.
How hot is the sun?
In short – very much! The surface of this star reaches a temperature of 5,500 degrees Celsius. Its core is approximately 14 million degrees Celsius.
What is the sun made of?
72% hydrogen, 26% helium and the remaining 2% trace amounts of other elements.
** INTERESTSING FACTS**
- The interior of the sun could contain 1.3 million planets the size of the Earth.
- Lightning is about five times warmer than the surface of the sun.
- In terms of shape, the Sun is the roundest object in the universe.
- The core of the Sun is around 15,000,000 degrees Celsius.
- Pluto takes 248 Earth years to orbit the sun.
- The American flags on the lunar surface are now white. It is related to solar radiation.
- The Earth’s core is similar in temperature to the surface of the Sun.
- Looking at the Sun can cause up to 35% of people to sneeze.
- In Japanese, the days of the week represent the celestial bodies. The sun is Sunday.
- In summer on Uranus, the sun does not set for 20 years. Darkness in winter lasts for the same period. It happens every 9 hours in the spring.
- 11.86 Earth years – this is how long Jupiter needs to run around the sun.
- Huge drops of plasma the size of the area of Ireland fall from the solar corona.
- Isaac Newton developed a phobia of sunlight from looking at the sun.
- The temperature inside the lightning reaches even 30,000 degrees Celsius. This is five times higher than the temperature at the surface of the sun.
- The sun is all the colors mixed together, making it appear white to our eyes.
- Every 230 million years, the sun, and the solar system it carries form a single orbit around the center of the Milky Way.
- The sun is 109 times wider than the Earth.
- It is closer to Earth than all other stars.
- The surface of the sun is 11990 times larger than the surface of the earth.
- The sun most likely formed over 4.5 billion years ago.
- The temperature inside the Sun can reach 15 million degrees Celsius!
- The sun is at the center of the solar system and all the planets orbit it.
- The sun contains 99.86% of the mass of the solar system.
- Once the Sun has burned all of its hydrogen, it will continue to burn helium for 130 million years. During this time, it will expand to the point of engulfing Mercury, Venus, and Earth. It will become a red giant at this stage.
- One day the sun will be more or less the same as the Earth.
- The sun is 70% hydrogen and 28% helium. 2% are other gases.
- The size of the sun is not exceptionally large compared to the largest known stars. However, compared to the most popular type of star in the universe, the red dwarf, the Sun is slightly larger.
- A solar eclipse occurs when the moon is between the sun and earth.
- 1.3 million planets The Earth can fit into one sun!
- Energy is produced in the core of the Sun by nuclear fusion when the hydrogen turns into helium. Hot objects expand and the Sun would explode were it not for its enormous gravitational force.
- The temperature at the surface of the Sun is 5600 degrees Celsius.
- Sunlight reaches Earth in eight minutes.
- The sun itself travels 220 kilometers per second.
- Inside, there are electric currents that generate a magnetic field that spreads throughout the solar system.
- The sun is one of over 100 billion stars in the Milky Way.
- The sun is a ball of gas and has no solid surface.
- The sun and its atmosphere are divided into several layers. It consists of a core, a radiation zone, and a convection zone. The solar atmosphere above consists of the photosphere, the chromosphere, the transition region, and the corona. Besides, there is solar wind and corona gas outflow.
- Nuclear reactions take place inside the core of the sun, due to temperature and pressure.
- Our star is the Yellow Dwarf, a medium-sized variety that is quite common in our galaxy. The name “Yellow Dwarf” is actually misleading because the sun burns bright white.
- The sun is approximately 391 times farther from the Earth than the Earth is from the Moon.
- The bubble surrounding the sun and the solar system is called the heliosphere.
- The sun takes 225-250 million years to complete an orbit around the center of the Milky Way.
- The distance from the Sun to the Earth varies throughout the year. This is because the Earth moves in an elliptical orbit around the sun. The distance between the two bodies ranges from 147 to 152 million kilometers.
- At about 4.5 billion years old, the Sun has already burned up about half of its hydrogen reserves. There is enough of it left to continue burning hydrogen for about 5 billion years.
- Our modern calendar is based on the movement of the Earth around the sun.
- Oxygen, carbon, and iron make up an exceedingly small fraction of the mass of the sun. Less than 2%.
- Due to the immense influence of the sun on the earth, many early cultures viewed the sun as God. The ancient Egyptians worshiped a sun god called Ra, and in Aztec mythology there was a sun god called Tonatiuh.
- The strength of the magnetic field of the Sun is usually about twice as strong as that of the Earth. However, it becomes highly concentrated in small areas, reaching up to 3,000 times stronger magnetic fields than usual.
- The distance between the Earth and the Sun is an Astronomical Unit (AU).
- A scientist and philosopher from present-day Turkey called Anaxagoras was the first to suggest that the sun is a star around 450 B.C.
- The process by which energy travels from the Sun to Earth is known as radiation.
- If there were no sun, the earth would travel in a straight line.
- According to inventor Ray Kurzweil, all the world’s energy needs can be met with 1 / 10,000ths of the sun’s light that falls on Earth every day.
- Six ten billionths of the sun is gold.
- Every second, the Sun sends to Earth 10 times more neurons than the number of people on Earth.
- The Sun is believed to have completed about 20 orbits in its lifetime and only 1/1250. orbits since the beginning of human existence.
- We experience a solar eclipse because the sun is exactly 400 times larger than the moon and the moon is 400 times closer to the earth than the sun.
- The earth moves at a speed of 107,218 km / h (approximately 29.78 km / s) around the sun.
- When the Sun blows its powerful solar wind, it hits the Earth’s atmosphere, and the particles interact with each other. The result of these interactions is colorful vortices in the northern sky known as the Aurora Borealis.
- Thanks to the changing orbit of the moon, in about 50 million years, the moon will no longer completely block the sun.
- The light we see from the sun is actually emitted from the photosphere, which is the lowest layer of the solar atmosphere. The photosphere is nearly 500 kilometers thick. The temperature of this layer is 6125 degrees Celsius.
- The next layer is the chromosphere which is about 1000 km thick. This layer is warmer and has a temperature of 19725 degrees Celsius.
- After the chromosphere is a transition region that extends several thousand kilometers above the chromosphere. This region is responsible for the creation of UV rays.
- Above the transition region is the crown. It consists of streams and loops of ionized gases. The corona has an average temperature of between 500,000 degrees Celsius and 6 million degrees Celsius. During solar flares, the corona temperature can exceed 10 million degrees Celsius.
- The amount of energy that the Earth receives from the sun in 1 hour exceeds the energy consumed by all humanity in one year.
- Solar energy is the most abundant source of energy available. The earth constantly receives 173,000 terawatts of solar energy. This is equivalent to 10,000 times the total energy consumption in the world.
- Light travels at a speed of approximately 300,000 km per second.
- On average, there are no less than 2 and no more than 5 solar eclipses per year.
- Most solar eclipses are partial, and a total solar eclipse occurs once every year and a half.
- A total solar eclipse can take up to 7 and a half minutes.
- If you are at the North or South Pole, you cannot see a total solar eclipse.
- A total solar eclipse drops the temperature to 20 degrees.
- In ancient times, people thought that the eclipse was a sign that the Gods were bad or that bad things were about to happen.
- In 1859 there was a magnetic storm. Disruptions of Earth’s magnetism have caused failures of telegraph networks in Europe and North America.
- During the ejection of the corona mass during a magnetic storm, a billion tons of plasma material can be blown away from the sun. Eruptions carry around 300 petawatts of energy, or 50,000 times more energy used by humans in one year. As structures move out of the sun, they expand, and as they reach Earth, some of their energy is transferred. These interactions can cause havoc. Spaceships will be damaged, planes will receive x-ray waves, and the power grid may be disrupted – one day, possibly in a catastrophic manner.
- Solar energy, consisting of heat radiation and sunlight, can be harnessed using modern technologies such as photovoltaics, artificial photosynthesis, solar architecture, and solar electricity.
- Solar technology can be divided into active and passive. Photovoltaic panels and solar collectors using solar energy are examples of active solar technology. Passive technology involves the construction of rooms to improve air circulation, the orientation of the space in such a way as to use sunlight favorably.
- Thanks to photosynthesis, the energy of the sun is converted by green plants into chemical energy, which forms the biological mass that makes up fossil fuels.
- Every ounce of crude oil, every lump of coal, and every cubic foot of natural gas could stay in the ground if we could only capture one hour of solar energy each year.
- The cost of solar panels has fallen by 99% since 1977.
- The sun is slowly warming up and shines 10% more every billion years. Forecasts estimate that in less than another billion years the sun will be so hot that life as we know it will not be able to exist on Earth.
- The sun emits three different types of energy: infrared radiation, visible light, and ultraviolet light.
- UV sun rays have antiseptic properties, i.e., it disinfects, destroys microorganisms on the skin, mucous membranes, and infected wounds.
- A geomagnetic storm is a worldwide disturbance in the Earth’s magnetic field as a result of solar activity.
- The sun rotates, but not in the same way as the earth. Like the gas and ice giants, the Sun’s equator and poles complete their rotation at different times. The Sun’s equator takes 24 days to complete its rotation. The poles rotate every 35 days.
- In the sunspots, the magnetic lines spin like a tornado on Earth.
- The sun generates the solar wind. Wind it is a stream of charged particles. They travel through the solar system at about 450 kilometers per second.
- Every day, plants convert sunlight into energy equivalent to six times the energy consumption of human civilization.
- Helioseismology is the science of studying the interior of the sun.
- The sun is studied using a number of satellites, the main of which is SOHO (Solar and Heliosphere Observatory).
- For every million hydrogen atoms on the Sun, there are 35 silicon atoms, 35 iron atoms, 40 magnesium atoms, 110 nitrogen atoms, 120 neon atoms, 360 carbon atoms, 850 oxygen atoms.
- The ozone layer on Earth absorbs most of the harmful ultraviolet rays that cause sunburn.
- The sun is 330,000 times more massive than the Earth.
- Interestingly, the heat and energy released from the solar core reach the surface of the sun for millions of years!
- The sun is about 400 times larger than the moon.
- The atmosphere outside is hotter than on the surface. The chromosphere is part of the atmosphere just above the surface. Temperatures can reach 100,000 Kelvin. Further in the corona, temperatures can be as high as 1 million degrees Kelvin.
- The sun is a semi-chaotic system. Every 100 years or so, the sun appears to go to sleep, and for two or three decades, its activity is limited. When he wakes up, he becomes much more active and violent. Scientists are not sure why this is so.
- The sun is an almost perfect sphere with a difference of only 10 km in diameter between the poles and the equator.
- If you weighed 68 kg on Earth, you would weigh 1905 kg on the Sun.
- On Earth, the sun can take on warmer shades, especially at sunrise or sunset, because our planet’s atmosphere is the most diffuse of blue and green light.
- The core of the Sun makes up about 2% of the total mass of the Sun and extends only up to a quarter of its mass from the center to the surface. This core is denser than lead.
- When the magnetic energy that accumulates in the solar atmosphere is suddenly released, it causes a sharp change in brightness known as a solar flare. The amount of energy released during the explosion is equivalent to the simultaneous explosion of millions of 100 megaton hydrogen bombs.
- Approximately every 11 years, the sun’s magnetic poles reverse their polarity. Magnetic North becomes Magnetic South and vice versa.
- Every 11 years or so, solar activity increases during the time known as the “solar maximum”. Sunspots that have formed on the surface of the last eleven years will explode, sending clouds of gas known as “CME” into the solar system.
- The average radius of the Sun is 695,508 km, of which 20-25% is the core.
- About 30% of solar radiation is reflected back into space and the rest is absorbed by the oceans, clouds, and land masses.
- The star closest to our sun, Proxima Centauri, is much further than Pluto.
- It takes 248 years for Pluto to orbit the sun.
- The core of the earth is as hot as the sun.
- The sun is the most perfect natural object known in the universe.
- The sun is about 13 billion times brighter than the next brightest star, Sirius.
- Partial solar eclipses are dangerous to the eyesight because the pupil of the eye is not adapted to extremely high visual contrast.
- 5 billion years ago, a cloud of dust and gas called the nebula collapsed under its own gravity. The cloud turned and flattened into a disk, with our sun forming at its center. A disk on the periphery later flew into our solar system, including the Earth and other planets. Scientists even managed to see these nascent shields around our younger cousins.
- Parker Solar Probe, or Parker for short, will eventually travel an eighth of the distance between the Sun and Mercury to conduct a direct study of the corona, the outermost region of the Sun. It has 4 scientific instruments that collect data from behind a heat shield that keeps the spacecraft at the right temperature. The mission is to last 7 years, until 2025.
- In close proximity, the Sun will be 25 times wider for Parker than it is for Earth.
- At close proximity, the sun will be 625 times brighter than it appears from Earth. To photograph the Sun from Earth, you need to use an infrared and ultraviolet filter and block out everything but 0.01% of its light. If you wanted to photograph the Sun with Parker, you would have to block out everything but 0.0000002% of its light.
- The American flags placed on the moon are now white due to solar radiation.
- In 1666, Isaac Newton observed sunlight with a prism and showed that it was composed of light of many colors.
- If the Sun were the size of a beach ball in space, Jupiter would be the size of a golf ball and the Earth would be as small as a pea.
