Sun

Image Source: http://www.nineplanets.org/sol.html

The sun is the heart of our Solar System. Its gravity holds all of the planets in orbit. The sun is one of more than 100 billion stars in our galaxy. It has a diameter of 863,706 miles, a mass of 4.384989e+033. Its surface temperature is approximately 9980F and its core temperature is estimated at 28,079,540F. The sun is so massive that it contains more than 99.8% of the total mass of the Solar System. The sun is a fairly large star, the estimated average mass is less than half of our own sun. The sun is 75% hydrogen and 25% helium. The sun outputs about 386 billion megawatts of energy by converting 700 million tons of hydrogen to helium by means of nuclear fusion.

The Planets

 
            Distance  Radius    Mass
Planet      (000 km)   (km)     (kg)   
---------  ---------  ------  ------- 
Mercury       57,910    2439  3.30e23
Venus        108,200    6052  4.87e24
Earth        149,600    6378  5.98e24
Mars         227,940    3397  6.42e23
Jupiter      778,330   71492  1.90e27
Saturn     1,426,940   60268  5.69e26
Uranus     2,870,990   25559  8.69e25   
Neptune    4,497,070   24764  1.02e26   
Pluto      5,913,520    1160  1.31e22

The Solar System : The Sun

created by Titan Miller,
Burlington Community High School Math Department, Burlington Community High School

last modified: December 17, 2002

URL: www.titanmiller.net/pages/sun.html