WELCOME TO THE SUN

At the very centre of the Solar System is a massive ball of gas. This ball of gas is called the Sun. Without the Sun, life on Earth wouldn't exist. There would be no water, no light, no plants, no people and no heat. The Sun is a star, just like the millions of other stars in the sky. The reason it appears so much bigger than other stars is because it is so close to Earth, only 8 light minutes away (meaning that it takes 8 minutes for light from the Sun to hit Earth). The nearest star after the Sun is Proxima Centauri, 4.28 Light Years away from us (about 37,000,000,000,000 kilometres away!), so, if we were to see that star in the sky, we would be seeing it as it was 4 years ago.

Earth and the other planets in the Solar System spin around the sun, kept in orbit around it by its strong pull of gravity. Each time a planet has spun around the sun and has returned to where it began, a year has passed. It takes just over 365 days for the Earth to spin round the sun, so a year on Earth is 365 days long. A year on Mercury, the planet closest to the Sun, is only 88 days long, but a year on dwarf planet Pluto, millions of miles away from the Sun, is as long as 248 earth years! In the picture above, you are able to see brown spots - these are Sun Spots, areas where the sun's temperature is coldest, about 3000°c - 4000°c. Usually the sun's temperature is about 5500°c on the surface, and much hotter inside! To imagine how hot that is, a hot day in summer on earth is about 27°c!