Hobbies And Interests
Size
A total of more than one million planets the size of the earth could fit inside the sun. The sun has a diameter of 864,000 miles and the total surface area of the star equals the surface area of 11,990 earths. The sun lies at an average distance of 93 million miles away from the earth. The next closest star to the sun is Proxima Centauri, and is 4.3 light years away.
Time frame
The light emitted from the nuclear reactions that take place in the sun travels at 186,000 miles per second and reaches the earth in 8.3 minutes. The outermost "dwarf planet" of Pluto, which is more than a billion miles from the sun, will see the same light in 5.5 hours. The sun rotates on its axis as does the earth, but it takes the star 25.38 days to make one revolution. Scientists have estimated that the sun is 4.5 billion years old and will continue to exist for another 4.5 billion years.
Layers
At the sun's gaseous core, hydrogen is converted to helium. The energy from this conversion travels outward through the shell of the star into a region called the radiative zone, and then into the next layer, known as the convection zone. The energy then makes its way to the sun's surface, which is classified into three separate regions. The lower layer, the photosphere, is the surface visible to the eye while above this is the chromosphere and the corona, both of which can be viewed only during eclipses--when the moon comes between the sun and the earth.
Features
The sun gives off light as well as heat. Charged particles called protons and electrons stream from the sun at speeds of 280 miles per second. These solar winds travel through the entire solar system. A solar flare is a burst of these particles that can reach into space from the sun's surface as far as 100,000 miles. These flares most often will come from sunspots, which are the result of magnetic fields within the sun that create cooler patches on the surface.
Expert Insight
While the surface of the Sun has a temperature of about 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit, the core is estimated to be incredibly hotter at 28 million degrees. In terms of weight, the sun is 73 percent hydrogen, 25 percent hydrogen, and the remaining percentages are made up of nitrogen, carbon, oxygen and other trace elements. However, in terms of volume the sun is 92.1 percent hydrogen, 7.8 percent helium, and the other elements account for just .1 percent.