THE SUN

MASS: 332, 946 times heavier than earth
DIAMETER: 861,000 miles
ROTATION: 27 earth days

The sun is the largest and most important part of our solar system. It consists approximately 98% or the solar system's total mass. Although the sun plays an important part of our daily lives it is nothing than an ordinary G-type star (A spectral class of stars whose surface temperatures lie in the range 5,000° to 6,000° Kelvin, typified as having a yellow colouration.) Scientists believe the sun is about 4.6 billion years old and has enough fuel to continue burning for another 5 billion years, at least.The sun can be divided into three parts: core, radioactive zone, and the convective zone. Then the surface and atmosphere can also be divided into three parts: photosphere (surface), chromosphere (inner atmosphere), and the corona (outer atmosphere).The core is about 25 million degrees F. Like all stars this is where the nuclear fusion takes place. In the core, hydrogen gas is slowly converted into helium, which creates energy. Every second the sun converts 700 million tons of hydrogen into 695 million tons of helium which creates over 386 billion trillion mega watts of energy, which is equivalent to that generated by 100 billion tons of TNT exploding each second. The energy released prevents the collapse of the sun and keeps it in gaseous form. The helium gas slowly rises to the surface through the radioactive zone and is then converted into heat and light in the convection zone. As it reaches the surface (photosphere) it cools down and the gas starts to sink back into the convective zone and then reaches the radioactive zone where things start to heat up and the whole process starts up again. It takes about 50 millions years for the energy formed at the core of the sun to reach the surface.