12 Unsettling Facts About the Sun That Will Have You Worshipping It Like the Old Days
The more I learn about this thing, the more I think we probably should be sacrificing things to it.
The Sun Is So, So Much Bigger Than the Earth
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The diameter of the Sun is approximately 109 times the diameter of Earth. Which also means that the surface area of the Sun is about 11,900 times larger than the surface of Earth. Maybe most disconcerting is the difference in volume: The Sun contains 1.3 million times the volume of our Earth.
It Makes Up An Overwhelming Part of Our Solar System’s Mass
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The Sun contains 99.8 percent of the total mass of our solar system. Meaning the entirety of the rest of the solar system, including planets, are only responsible for 0.2 percent.
The Sun Has An Atmosphere, and We’re Inside It
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The Sun’s atmosphere (or heliosphere) doesn't only envelop Earth, but every planet in our solar system, which is actually a good thing, because it protects us from cosmic radiation.
The Core of the Sun Is Hotter Than You Can Imagine
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The hottest part of the Sun is its core, the temperature of which is above 27,000,000 degrees Fahrenheit. That’s approximately 7,500 times hotter than the hottest butane torch.
It Produces An Incredible Amount of Energy
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To match the energy produced by the sun, you'd have to detonate 100 billion tons of dynamite — per second.
That Energy Comes From Constant Nuclear Fusion
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Yes, the same kind of nuclear fusion that is responsible for energy, and occasionally large-scale death, here on earth.
It’s A Tightly Packed Ball of Gas
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The Sun is made up primarily of hydrogen and helium, held together in a ball by its overwhelmingly powerful gravitational forces.
That Gravity Is Much More Powerful Than The Earth’s
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Though the sun doesn’t have a “surface” per se, if you were to stand on the photosphere, which is what people usually mean by “the surface of the sun,” you’d be experiencing a force of gravity 28 times stronger than Earth's.
It’s Constantly Running 230 Million Year Long Laps
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The same way Earth orbits the Sun, the Sun orbits the center of the Milky Way Galaxy. A trip that takes roughly 230 million years to complete.
Different Sections of the Sun Revolve at Different Speeds
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Unlike planets, though the Sun does revolve around an axis, it does so at variable speeds, made possible because it’s not solid. The equator of the Sun completes a revolution in 25 days, while the poles take 36 days.
It Will Eventually Die
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Though a long, long way away (roughly 5 billion years), the Sun will eventually run out of hydrogen and slowly burn itself out.
But We Won’t Be Here to See It
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Even if humans managed to survive everything else the passage of an unimaginable amount of time could throw at us, in roughly one billion years the Sun would destroy life on Earth. That’s because the Sun is constantly burning hotter, and in one billion years, it will be 10 percent brighter, enough to evaporate all water off the surface of the Earth and prevent new water from forming.
