With summer just around the corner, Seattle residents are taking to the great outdoors to bask in the warm light of our Sun. As the area’s preferred provider of solar batteries and solar power systems, Atlas Power Corp. knows better than anybody how lucky we are to have such an abundant supply of free energy. The Sun is truly amazing, and without it, life as we know it on Earth would cease to exist. To celebrate its awesome power and life-giving energy, here are some interesting facts about our Sun.
The Sun Is BIG.
Easily the largest object in the Solar System, the Sun accounts for 99% of all its mass. Weighing in at nearly 2,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 kilograms, its gravity is strong enough to keep all its planets in orbit, even from a distance of 3.67 billion miles in the case of Pluto. The Sun also dwarfs all the planets when it comes to size. With a diameter of 864,576 miles, it could hold 1.3 million Earths inside of it.
The Sun Is HOT.
Stars such as our Sun are giant nuclear furnaces that fuse the element hydrogen into heavier elements through the process of nuclear fusion. Its surface temperature is a balmy 9,941 degrees Fahrenheit, but the core is where things really heat up. At the center, temperatures approach 27 million degrees!
The Sun Is FAR AWAY.
It is impressive that for all the energy the Sun delivers to Earth, driving weather patterns and charging solar batteries across the planet, it is so far away that it takes light over 8 minutes to reach us. And in case you didn’t know, light travels faster than anything else in the known universe. 8 minutes at the speed of light multiplies out to a distance of about 93 million miles!
