5 Astonishing Facts of Sun

Fact No. 1- It's Not in the Center

Credit: NASA/Adler/U. Chicago/Wesleyan/JPL-Caltech

The Sun is not in the center of the Milky Way Galaxy. Along with a host of other stars, the Sun resides in a region called the Orion Arm of the Milky way, which lies closer to the edge of the galaxy than the center. 

Fact No. 2- Gas Ball

The Sun is made almost entirely of gases. Hydrogen and Helium, respectively, make up 75% and 25% of it's mass. That dose not leave much space for any other elements like carbon, nitrogen and oxygen, which are there, but in very small proportions. 

Despite being made of gases, the Sun has mass and therefore gravity. Gas has mass, and a whole lot of gas can make enough gravity to not only hold the Sun together but to keep the planets circling around it instead of flying off into deep space. 

Fact No. 3- Spots

Sunspots are a common feature on the photosphere. They are the sites of magnetic storms-place where solar material is either shooting up off the sun's surface or falling back down in arcs and loops.

In this image, you can see an active region on the sun with dark sunspots. Image credit: NASA/SDO/AIA/HMI/Goddard Space Flight Center

Predicting sunspot is really tough. Astronomers do not know when they will crop up, how large they will expand, and how long they will last. Some sunspots last a matter of hours. Other can last more than a month. For the last 400 years astronomers have been keeping tabs on sunspots activity, and they've found a rough cycle of solar activity that repeats itself about every eleven years.

Fact No. 4- Explosive Personality

Although it seems to be a steady sphere of light, the Sun is continually in flux, erupting randomly and in all directions. The eruptions are called solar prominence, solar flares and coronal mass ejections. Even the mildest outburst from the Sun could engulf the entire Earth. 

Along the edge of the Sun, astronomers can detect eruptions of stellar material that shoot out thousands of miles from the surface. Solar prominence, material spirals off the surface of the sun in dramatic loop, arcs and coils. Once the material cools, it falls back to the surface of the Sun. The Shape of a solar prominence can change in matter of minutes. 

Solar flares are violent solar outbursts. Materials wells up over a magnetic disturbance and creates a bubble-like formation. When enough pressure builds up, the flare bursts forth like an arrow leaving a bow. 

The most powerful explosion on the Sun are called coronal mass ejections, or CMEs. They are so powerful that material breaks free of the Sun's Gravitational pull and rockets into space at more than 1 Million miles per hour. 

Fact No. 5- Sun will Eat us. 

If the Sun Continues using its fuel supply of hydrogen at its presents rate, the Sun will last another 5 billion years. During last couple hundred million years of the Sun's expected life cycle, the Sun will expand, cool, and turn orange and then red. It will grow so large that it will engulf the planets Mercury, Venus and Earth. As the end of Earth approaches, the Sun will no longer be a yellow-white ball but a gigantic red orb that fills most of the sky. 

At the end of its life, the fight between gravity and pressure that raged during the Sun's entire 10-billion-year lifespan will be settled. It will not have enough gravity to hold itself together, and it's outer shells will expand and spread a ring of materiel, called a planetary nebula, like a shock wave through the solar system. The outer planets Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune may survive this phase in part, or they may be utterly destroyed. 

You are a Star, I am a Star, We all are super Stars.

The jewellery you wear, the fillings in your teeth and even the iron in your blood can only have come from one place: A Tremendous supernova. A long time ago a massive star exploded and created these elements. So if you go back in time far enough, each and every part of you was inside really humongous star. You and everyone you know are truly super stars! 

Information Credit: Dean Regas