5 interesting facts about the Sun you might not have known about

The Sun is the main star in our sky, providing energy to all life on Earth. UAportal has collected 5 interesting facts about the Sun, which you can't always find in a search engine.

Traveling on solar energy

Many people know that sunlight takes eight minutes to reach the Earth. However, the actual distance it travels is much longer. Considering the time it takes for the energy to be released and make its way to the surface of the Sun and then reach the solar corona and fly off into space, it actually takes millions of years.

The Sun is almost perfectly round

It is quite rare for a celestial body to have such an almost perfect geometric shape. The difference between the equatorial and polar diameters of the Sun is only about 10 kilometers, making its shape almost an exact sphere.

The scale of the Sun compared to the planets

We know that the Sun is the central and fundamental component of the solar system. Think about it - the mass of the Sun is approximately 99.86% of the total mass of the solar system. That means that all nine planets, their satellites, and the asteroid belt combined make up just 0.14% of the system.

Read also: How did the comet that flew as close to Earth as possible for the first time in 50,000 years look like?

The Sun turns around unevenly

Like the planets, the Sun also rotates around its axis. However, unlike solid celestial bodies, the Sun is a ball of glowing gases, resulting in an irregular structure.

This causes the rate of rotation to vary in different parts of the Sun. For example, a point at the equator makes a complete revolution in about 25 Earth days, while a point at the poles takes about 36 days.

The Sun at the equator of its life cycle

A star with its specific chemical composition and mass "lives" for about 10 billion years. According to modern scientific data, the age of the Sun is about 4.5 billion years.

This means that after another 4-5 billion years it will "die" and first turn into a red giant, destroying half of the solar system, absorbing Mercury, Venus and Earth. Then the outer layer will be expelled into space, leaving behind a white dwarf formed from the core of the former star.

We will remind, earlier scientists invented a way to fly to Mars in only 45 days instead of one year.

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