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Interesting Facts About The Sun

Interesting facts about the sun

The sun has 3 inner layers

  • Core
  • Radiative Zone (innermost layer of nuclear fusion)
  • Convective Zone (where the heat moves slowly from the inner layer to the surface)

Outer layers of the sun

  • Photosphere
  • Chromosphere
  • Transition Region
  • Corona

source (and more info about the sun’s layers)

A Big Ball of Gas

  • 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. The remaining four million tons of hydrogen are converted to energy, which makes the Sun shine.

Nuclear fusion is the source of Sun’s phenomenal energy output. The Hydrogen and Helium atoms that constitute Sun, combine in a heavy amount every second to generate a stable and a nearly inexhaustible source of energy.

(source) and more info about nuclear fusion in the sun

The Energy From The Sun

  • The total energy output from the sun is apparently 386 billion million megawatts.
  • Every second the sun produces the same energy as about a trillion 1 megaton bombs.
  • In one second, our sun produces enough energy for almost 500,000 years of the current needs of our so-called civilization.
  • According to NOAA, 173,000 terawatts of solar energy strikes the Earth continuously. That’s more than 10,000 times the world’s total energy use.
  • The amount of solar energy entering the top of Earth’s atmosphere is 1,360 watt per square meter.
  • It takes 1 million years for the energy from the core to reach the surface of the sun.

Temperature Of The Sun

Temperatures vary between different layers.

  • 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).

(source) and more info about the temperature of the sun’s layers

Rotation Of The Sun

Since the Sun is a ball of gas/plasma, it does not have to rotate rigidly like the solid planets and moons do. The sun’s rotation varies by latitude.

  • The sun rotates on its axis about every 27 days at the surface.
  • It takes about 35 days for one rotation near the poles.

The Sun Is Pretty Big

Our sun is actually an average sized star. Some stars out there are 700 times bigger!

  • The diameter of the sun is 864,000 miles wide (1.4 million km).
  • About 110 Earths would fit across the width (diameter) of the sun.
  • It would take about 1.3 million Earths to fit inside the sun (volume).

(see the image above illustrating how many earths fit across the sun’s diameter)

Solar Wind

NASA explains, The solar wind is created by the outward expansion of plasma (a collection of charged particles) from the Sun. This plasma is continually heated to the point that the Sun’s gravity can’t hold it down. It then travels along the Sun’s magnetic field lines that extend radially outward.

  • The average speed of solar wind as it is radiated from the Sun is 400 km/s. That’s 280 miles per second, or, just over 1 million miles per hour.
  • Typically, it takes solar wind about 4 days to reach the Earth at that speed.

Light Speed

The light from the sun (like all light) travels 186,282 miles per second (299,791 km/s).

  • The light from the sun takes about 8 and 1/3 minutes to reach the Earth, which is 93 million miles away (150 million km).
  • When you look up at the sun, you’re seeing the sun as it was about 8 minutes ago.

Warp one, in the world of Trek, is equal to the speed of light.

The Best Of Warp Speed!

Solar Cycles

  • Solar cycles occur every 11 years with an increase in sunspot activity.
  • A sunspot can sometimes erupt into solar flares that eject electromagnetic radiation particles into space, called a CME, or coronal mass ejection.

When Will The Sun Die

The sun is estimated to be 4.6 billion years old. And it’s apparently approximately 1/3 of the way through it’s ‘life’.

  • The sun apparently has about 7 or 8 (some sources say about 10) billion years of fuel left. So don’t worry…

[ Read: Quebec Blackout 1989 – Power Grid Geomagnetic Storm Vulnerability ]

22 Comments

  1. I have heard it’s a one-in-twelve chance per decade. If a big CME hits us it will make the bank collapse look like no-quarter-for-the-shopping-cart.

  2. We have been hearing for years from many websites that this cycle would be a Grand Solar Minimum, and we would all freeze from a mini ice age like in the 1600-1700s. Now cycle 25 is off to a roaring start, with sometimes several sunspots each day. Maybe the Globalist/Green/Geoengineer people will manage to kill us before the sun does.

    1. Old Alaskan, It will be a race to see who wins, for sure. The Modern
      Grand Soar Minimum began with the beginning of solar cycle 25 in December 2019. It is a relatively short one – just 33 years – and is predicted to end in 2053 at the end of solar cycle 27. There was an unusually long decline into this GSM over the past few SCs. SC 25 will hit its maximum of solar surface activity in 2025-2026 then begin the slide down into the trough. Lowest point of solar surface activity is predicted to be as we bottom out in 25 and head into 26, 2028 through 2032. We’ve already begun to experience the perturbations in the jet stream, thus the weather, and cropping/harvesting. This unusual third El Nino winter in a row with its heavy cloudiness in areas is also normal for a GSM. Cloudiness is expected to intensify through the trough and perhaps linger for several years after. It has been predicted that it may be so cloudy during the trough that, on a global scale, vegetation will have a hard time growing. It’s just too bad that the sorry state of various countries’ governments has put us in a position where other negative economic and agricultural impacts are compounding what the Sun is doing. Thus, LTS preps for people and animals are prudent to face what is coming.

      1. Thanks Anony Mee, I used to follow that information closely, but got some land and have been trying to get ready for retirement. Very busy. Thanks for bringing me up to speed. You reinforce my need for a greenhouse and indoor growing food.

  3. Has anyone else noticed how the Sun looks much whiter, rather than the yellowish of maybe 50 or 55 years ago when I was a kid. It really seems much brighter nowadays! well, maybe just old age on my part!

    1. epo3
      Noticed the change around the time dh & I purchased the land where we would put our home, that is going back to 1988.

  4. Epo3 – we’ve noticed it as well last few years…whiter, more intense rays. Seen affects as well in the garden and pastures and a slight change in row crop. Could be the lack of moisture, but doesn’t “feel” the same as in past dry years. Haven’t found any definitive data to explain “why” as of yet.

    1. SDman

      Check out Suspicious0bservers (0 = zero) on You Tube: “Who Remembers the Yellow Sun”
      youtube (dot) com/watch?v=lsJl0M-kd-g

      If you want to go down a really, really, deep rabbit hole, also check out their Disaster Playlist and the 12,000 year cycle….

  5. The other reality that is not talked about is that the planets do NOT orbit around the sun in a nice flat orbital plane like we have been taught in school. If that was true, then we would not be able to see all the other planets all the time from some point on Earth because some of the other planets would be in orbit behind the sun.
    In reality all the planets are in a large cone shaped spiraling trailing tail behind the sun as the sun plows through space. Thats why re-occurring comets can return back to our sun because they are in a large elliptical orbit trailing the sun, not somehow readjusting their comet orbits as the planetary solar system moves along through space.

    1. Not so sure. Sources for this please. Never heard you could see all planets all of the time from Earth.

      1. Deep south, it is a once every millennia (just a figure o speech) kinda occurrence but it is a thing, planetary alignments and such are mentioned or depicted in many places, cultures, and widely varied times, worth doing some searches and reading, interesting stuff. Ranges from folklore to astronomy.

        1. Kula, True enough that the orbits will on occasion allow the viewing of all the planets this way but it certainly is not a regular or routine occurrence. There is no significance to this only my response to an uneducated statement of fact. No big deal.

    2. not so sure, In fact, we can NOT “see all the other planets all the time from some point on Earth”. The planets and other material ARE in a relatively flat pane around the Sun. The planets all revolve around the sun at different speeds and so their spatial relationship to each other is always changing. For an image of their locations, here is a helpful website: theplanetstoday.com. Spaceweather.com provides a daily image of meteoritic fireballs and a chart listing all near Earth asteroids. Comets tend not to orbit the sun on the planetary orbital plane.

    3. Turns out, I was very wrong about the helical helix spiral vortex model of our solar system. My dad (and most of the readers of this forum) have corrected me. The planetary plane is tipped at 60 degrees to the direction the sun is moving and sometimes Eris, Haumea and Makemake are way out in front of the sun. The only thing helical is the path of the planets through space, not the orbit around the sun.
      I am less of a village idiot now, just a solar idiot.

  6. We have solar cycles, regression of the equinox, record levels of cosmic radiation due to Earth’s decreased magnetic field, planetary alignments, ozone depletion, earthquakes and volcanoes, and a polar reversal any time now. Guess we need Ken to do an article on Earth embanked construction cause it’s gonna get really fun.

  7. Ken, The Best of Warp Speed was a treat! Nice to hear Spock’s voice close it out at the end.

  8. It has been noted that volcanism increases during solar minima, especially grand solar minima. This GSM should be no different. One interesting fact about the Sun is that it reverses polarity with each ~ 11-year cycle. The location of solar surface activity follows the pole shift, with one cycle’s activity being north of the Sun’s equator and the next being south of it. It is when the activity is in the south that we have the most terrestrial volcanic activity. That will be the upcoming SC 26, where we will also have the trough. Besides all the impact of lower solar surface activity (see modernsurvivalblog.com/natural-disaster/grand-solar-minimum/), increased volcanism will result in more particulates in the upper atmosphere. This not only shades the earth, it also causes even more cloud formation bringing on even more shade and cooling. A recent explanation for the mechanism of the Sun stoking volcanic activity on Earth can be found here (solargsm.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/vasilieva_zharkova_volcanos.pdf). ..

    1816 was the year without a summer. It was the trough of the Dalton Minimum (not even a grand solar minimum) and was exacerbated by the massive eruption of Mt. Tambora in Indonesia in 1815, which darkened the globe. “We have had the most extraordinary year of drought & cold ever known in the history of America. . . . The crop of corn thro’ the Atlantic states will probably be less than 1/3 of an ordinary one, that of tobo still less, and of mean quality. The crop of wheat was midling in quantity, but excellent in quality. But every species of bread grain taken together will not be sufficient for the subsistence of the inhabitants.” –Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to Albert Gallatin, 8 September 1816. (Taken from an article I wrote for American Thinker – americanthinker.com/articles/2021/06/preparing_for_the_coming_food_shortages_associated_with_the_dark_cold_years.html)

  9. Been feeling like sun is brighter, and that it’s shining right through you. You might not be wrong. Interesting article. (blog.physics-astronomy.com/2023/08/highest-energy-sunlight-ever-recorded.html)

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