Hello Kids! Today we are going to learn some very interesting facts about earth’s nearest star. Do you know what it is? Yes, it’s the Sun!
75 Fun Facts about Sun Every Kid Should Know
Sun is one of the 100 Billion Stars in our Galaxy. It is located very far away from us. That means, if we try to go to the sun on a bicycle it would take us 1062 years, a car to the sun will take us 177 years and a flight will take us 19 years!
As you know the earth pulls us to itself using the force of gravity. The force of gravity on the sun is 27 times that of the earth. If you stand on it, you won’t be able to move!
Do you know that the sun actually looks the same as the hundreds of stars that we see during the night time? It appears as a whitish, reddish orange ball because it is so close to us. It is so big that you can fit 10 Lakh Earths inside it!
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As you know, that the sun is a star. A star gives us heat energy which is produced by complex processes that happen inside its core. It produces immense amounts of solar energy. To give you an idea, isn’t it amazing that the entire sunlight received by earth in one hour is more than the energy the entire world uses in one year!
We all use cars and scooters to travel to different places. Do you know how the petrol and diesel which we use in the different vehicles come from? Yes, it’s the sun again! The petrol, diesel and coal are nothing but the sun’s energy which was stored in the plants and animals who lived on earth millions of years ago. The plants consume the sun’s energy and store it inside them. The animals consume plants and get the solar energy to perform various activities and to live their life. When such organisms die, they are decomposed by the huge pressure and temperature inside the earth where they are converted to natural gas and crude oil which we convert to petrol, diesel and LPG which are used for our daily needs.
As you would be knowing, the sun has been worshipped by various religions, civilizations and societies throughout the ages. Interestingly, until about 400 years ago people believed that it revolved around the earth.
Just like the earth, the sun also revolves around itself. It takes 24 days to rotate completely once about its axis.
The sun will live more for around 5 Billion Years. But just as we get old and we become weaker and our appearance changes, the same would happen to the Sun too. Slowly, it will start swelling to become a red giant and then it will shed its outer layers to become a white dwarf. Finally, as we slowly start dying it will turn into a cool, small object in space called a black dwarf star. Right now, the sun is middle-aged.
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The Sun also has moles on its face as we have! These places are relatively cooler than the rest of the sun’s surface and are called sunspots. They generally remain on the surface of the sun for around 11 Years.
As you know our solar system consists of the Sun, Mercury, Earth, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn and Neptune. When taken together the Sun itself weighs 99 % of the entire solar system!
You would also remember that the entire solar system is part of the Milky Way Galaxy and hence the Sun being at the center of the solar system completes one revolution around the center of our galaxy after every 2500 Lakh Years!
We generally use items made out of iron and steel in our daily lives. As you would know, when we heat a solid to a certain temperature, they melt to a liquid. Same happens to steel too, which is one of the strongest materials we have on earth. Steel melts at 1300° C. Can you imagine how hot the surface of the sun is? It is 5500° C, more than 55 Times the temperature at which you have seen water boil. Very Hot, isn’t it?
Whenever we look at something, we are able to see it immediately, isn’t it? It is because light travels so fast that we see an object almost at the same time when light leaves that object. But this is not true in case of the sun. It takes light 8 Minutes and 30 seconds to reach us from the sun. That means we can never see the sun at its present moment from the earth, we see it 8 Minutes and 30 Seconds before the present moment.
More Interesting Sun Facts for Kids
You may not have heard of a star bigger than the sun, but in fact, there are millions of stars that are hotter, brighter, bigger and heavier than the sun. The biggest star known to mankind, for example, will reach Saturn if placed at the same place as the sun! It is located very far away from us and is 1700 times bigger than the sun!
You also would have heard about a solar eclipse which occurs when the moon comes in between the sun and the earth. Thus, the moon blocks out the sun and only a part of the sun’s outer layer i.e. the corona is visible which is also one of the hottest layers on the sun. Interestingly, a full solar eclipse, when the moon fully covers the sun will not happen for another 6000 Lakh Years! We have seen only partial eclipses by the moon.
And last but not the least, the sun emits very harmful radiation that can damage your eyes permanently if you look at it directly. There are special viewing cameras and instruments to look at the sun.
