Despite being the largest object in the solar system, the sun is only average in size compared to other stars in the Milky Way.
Located 149.6 million km from Earth. , the sun is composed of streams of molten plasma intertwined with an electromagnetic field, with a surface temperature as high as 5,505 degrees Celsius. Most life on Earth can survive on the sun.
How big is the sun?
The sun is almost a perfect sphere. The diameter of the equator and its poles is only 10 km apart. The sun has an average radius of 696,000 km and a diameter of about 1.392 million km. According to NASA, 109 Earths could align perfectly on the sun's surface.
According to solar scientist C. Alex Young of NASA, if the sun were empty, it would take about approx. 1 million Earths to fill it. Meanwhile, if the Earth were empty, only about 50 satellites would be needed to fill it.
The total mass of the sun is 1,989 x 1030 kg, about 333,000 times the mass of the Earth. In terms of size, if the sun were the size of a basketball, the Earth would be the size of a matchstick.
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The size of the Earth and Moon when placed next to the Sun. (Photo: Mohamed Elgun)
Although the sun is at the center of the solar system and is the largest object in the solar system, it is only one of hundreds of billions of stars in the Milky Way. For example, Betelgeuse is a red giant star 700 times the mass of the Sun and 14,000 times brighter.
NASA said on the agency's SpacePlace website: "We discovered it. that stars are 100 times larger in diameter than the sun. They are really huge." However, there are also stars that are only 1/10 the size of the Sun.
Also according to NASA experts, the size of the sun may be much larger than previously announced due to Humans cannot measure stars accurately.
NASA researcher Ernie Wright told Space that measuring the sun is not as simple as you might think, it's not about putting a ruler on the picture. satellite image and give a number. Even measured using the movements of Mercury and Venus will not necessarily yield the expected results.
Sun and The Earth
The sun is classified as a G-type main sequence star, or G dwarf, or more precisely, a yellow dwarf. In fact, like other G-type stars, the Sun is white, but appears yellow in Earth's atmosphere.
The size of the planets in the solar system.
Stars usually get bigger as they "get older". According to NASA, in about 5 billion years, scientists believe that the sun will start to use up all the hydrogen in its core, at which point it will gradually become a red giant star and expand its orbit far away. than the sun. with now.
By running computer simulations, scientists discovered that instead of fading and disappearing as previously thought, the sun becomes a nebula beautiful planet clearly visible millions of light-years away.
Although Earth may survive the death of the sun, life on Earth will perish. long ago. As the sun ages, it will get brighter, and within the next 2 billion years, the sun could be so hot that it boils the Earth's oceans.
If the Earth were inhabited in At that point, they will have to consider migrating to another planet, such as Mars, which will be warmer due to the sun's explosion.