Facts about the sun and the solar system

23/02/2021

At 4.6 billion years old, our Sun is in its Main Sequence stage and considered a middle-aged star. This means it is halfway through its life and it is currently known as a Yellow Dwarf.

23/02/2021

As the Proto-Stars collapse, gravitational energy is converted into heat and this causes the Proto-Star to glow red. It continues to condense until nuclear reactions within its core halt the gravitational collapse. This means the Proto-Star has become a Star and is in its Main Sequence.

23/02/2021

The Sun started out its life-cycle like all other stars do, as a gas cloud called a Nebula. Initially the gas and dust which created our Sun would have been in the form of a dense cloud that would have been approximately -226 degrees Celsius. Parts of this cloud would have started to collapse under their own gravity to form flecks called Proto-Stars.

23/02/2021

The Sun is the impeccably perfect size, shape, brightness, age, temperature and distance for life to exist on Earth. If it were any different in these categories – ever so slightly – life as we know it wouldn’t exist.

19/02/2021

19/02/2021

There are also four other Dwarf Planets kept in orbit by our Sun’s massive gravitational pull. These are Ceres, Haumer, Makemake and Eris.

19/02/2021

Many believe that there are nine planets orbiting around the Sun in our Solar System – these being Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. However, there are technically only eight as Pluto is classified as a Dwarf Planet.

19/02/2021

Our Sun is just one of approximately 100 billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy!

15/02/2021

The Sun’s surface area is 11,990 times greater than the surface area of the Earth.

15/02/2021

If the Sun was hollow, then it could be filled up with approximately 960,000 spherical Earths. However, if the Earths were squashed inside the hollow Sun with no space wasted then about 1,300,000 would fit inside.

15/02/2021

The Sun weighs an incredible 1,989,100,000,000,000,000,000 billion kilograms. That’s roughly the weight of 330,060 Earths!

15/02/2021