15 Interesting Facts about the Sun
October 27, 2010, Submitted by: Ken Tweet
As interest heightens while we approach the next 11-year solar cycle maximum during 2012 – 2013,
Interesting facts about the sun
- The sun has three layers,
- Radiative Zone (innermost layer of nuclear fusion)
- Convective Zone (where the heat moves slowly from the inner layer to the surface)
- Photosphere (the layer that we can see)
- The sun is a big ball of gas, 74 percent hydrogen and 24 percent helium.
- At the sun’s core, nuclear fusion burns about 600 million tons of hydrogen every second, resulting in 596 million tons of helium and 4 million tons of energy.
- The energy output from the sun is 385 billion billion megawatts, of which the Earth receives 95 billion megawatts (about the energy from 95 million typical sized nuclear power plants).
- It takes 1 million years for the energy from the core to reach the surface of the sun.
- About half of the sun’s hydrogen has been used up so far.
- The temperature at the core of the sun is 27 million degrees F (15 million degrees C).
- The surface temperature of the sun is about 10 thousand degrees F (5,500 degrees C).
- The sun has a differential rotation, about every 25 days at the surface of the equator and about 35 days near the poles.
- The diameter of the sun is 864,000 miles wide (1.4 million km).
- 109 Earths would fit across the width of the sun.
- The sun radiates light (photons) and charged particles of electrons and protons (solar wind).
- The normal solar wind travels about 280 miles per second (450 km) and takes almost 4 days to reach the Earth.
- The light from the sun (like all light) travels 186,282 miles per second (299,791 km) and takes about 8 and one-half minutes to reach the Earth which is 93 million miles away (150 million km).
- Solar cycles occur every 11 years with an increase in sunspot activity, which sometimes erupt into solar flares that eject electromagnetic radiation particles into space.
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I have more facts
The sun is a big ball of gas, 74 % hydrogen and 27% helium.
This huge mass of hot, glowing gas has strong gravitational pull that holds Earth and the other planets in the solar system in orbit.
There are NINE planets orbiting the SUN (Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto)
All planets orbit the sun in the same direction, counterclockwise,
The temperature of the outer, visible part of the Sun is 5500°C. This part is the photosphere.
The sun’s surface, or atmosphere, is divided into three regions: the photosphere, the chromosphere, and the solar corona.
The photosphere is the visible surface of the sun and the lowest layer of the atmosphere.
Just above the photosphere are the chromosphere and the corona, which also emit visible light but are only seen during a solar eclipse, when the moon passes between the Earth and sun.
The Sun has a diameter of 1,390,000 km.
The sun can fit approximately one-million Earths inside of it.
Its Core temperature is 15 million º C.
The sun is a common middle-sized star.
The Sun is about 4.5 billion years old. it will probably continue to exist in its present form for about another 5 billion years before running out of hydrogen.
Every so often, a patch of particles will burst from the sun in a solar flare, which can disrupt satellite communications and knock out power on Earth.
Solar Flares usually start from the activity of sunspots. Theses spots are cooler than the rest of the sun.
The sunspots on the sun have strong magnetic fields thousands of time stronger than earth’s.
The sun rotates on its axis once every 25.38 Earth days.
The sun’s gravity is 28 times than of Earth. That’s means you would weigh 28 times more!