Well I’m afraid we can’t ignore the science like the Republicans, and we have to check out some of those tedious specs about the Sun. So here they are.
Diameter: Approx 800,000 KM* (109 times that of Earth)
Volume:** Approx 1,300,000 times that of Earth
Mass: Equivalent to 333,000 Earths
Gravity: 28 times that of Earth
Distance from Earth: 150,000,000 kms (1 AU***)
Star Type: G
Sidereal rotation period (at equator): Yeah, like we’re going to get into
that kind of s
hit!
Didn’t you see the logo above? As if.
* As I couldn’t be arsed constantly converting this to that, I’ve picked one measurement to go with and it’s kilometres, where I can use it. You want miles, I got one word for ya: Google.
** The size of stars makes many of the measurements used a little hard to understand for a non-brainiac like me (see? I couldn’t even spell brainiac without three attempts to do so!) and it makes it easier to use its relevance to Earth, so, rather like the annoying way they say on certain documentaries “100 feet, that’s two football fields” or whatever, here it’s a case of that much larger than Earth or in some cases so many Earths bigger. You’ll get the hang of it.
*** AU is the Astronomical Unit, which is basically, as above, 150 million km, or the distance from the Earth to the Sun. As we get out into space, things like kms don’t really cut it so you’ll find AUs being used a whole lot more, so get used to it.
Things I have learned about the Sun
Like I said at the start, this is a voyage of discovery as much for me as for you. Like most of my journals, I kind of know sod-all about the subject, or have a loose grasp of it, and supplement my knowledge through the time-honoured process of research. Or, to put it another, perhaps more accurate way, I look at the writing of people who know a hell of a lot more about me than the subject, steal it, rewrite it, and post it. Not literally obviously, and that’s somewhat satirical, but in the end, isn’t that what all research is? Looking to others to tell you what you want to know, and then imparting it to your readership?
As a result of this, I have already found out quite a lot about the Sun I did not know. And here is what I have found out.
The Sun is older than I thought. Not that I didn’t know how old it was, I just didn’t realise that it kind of straddles the middle age of stars, with the oldest being up to 14 billion years old (who’s paying for the candles on that cake, I wonder?) and the youngest counting their age in mere millions.
I did not know that our Sun is technically classed as a dwarf star. It is, a yellow one to be precise (which, given its actual colour is said to be white, confuses me, but then I’m easily confused). I also did not know that up to eighty percent of the stars in at least our galaxy are also dwarfs of various colours.
I thought that solar flares and solar prominences were the same thing. They’re not.
I had no idea that the Aurora Borealis (Northern Lights) and Australis (Southern Lights) are caused by eruptions from the Sun called CMEs, or Coronal Mass Ejections.
