Sun research

What is the sun?
The sun is the star at the center of the solar system.

How was the sun formed?
In the early moments of the Universe, the first element, hydrogen, formed from the soup of elementary particles. The pressure and temperatures were still so intense that the entire Universe had the same conditions as the core of a star. Hydrogen was fused into helium until the Universe cooled down enough that this reaction couldn't happen any more. The ratios of hydrogen and helium that we see in the Universe today were created in those first few moments after the Big Bang.

How hot is the sun?
At the core it is 15 million degrees Celsius or 27 million degrees Farenheit.

What is the main function of the sun in the solar system?
Its gravitational attraction maintains the planets, comets, and other bodies of the solar system in their orbits.

How does the sun make light?
The source of the Sun's brightness (and that of other stars) is due to nuclear chemical reactions occurring in its innermost parts, where the temperature is 15,000,000 Kelvin (27,000,000F).

The Sun's brightness is equal to 4 trillion trillion light bulbs! That's 4,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 of them!

What is the sun made of?
hydrogen (74%) and helium (about 24%) The remaining amount of the Sun is made of iron, nickel, oxygen, silicon, sulfur, magnesium, carbon, neon, calcium and chromium. In fact, the Sun is 1% oxygen; and everything else comes out of that last 1%.

How old is the sun?
The Sun is abut 4.5 billion years old now.