The sun, also known as ‘sol’, is the most powerful and most important object in our solar system.
It’s also the heaviest object by far.
How much does the sun weigh?
The sun is estimated to weigh 4,385,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 pounds (1,989,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 kg).
That’s beyond our brain’s comprehension.
This means the sun is as heavy as 330,060 Earths!
It is estimated that the sun has a mass that makes up to 99.86% of the mass of the entire Solar System.
Created as far back as 4.6 billion years ago, this gigantic ball of fire is made up of many different hot gases.
Hydrogen and helium are the two main gases, and other gases include carbon, nitrogen, sulfur, magnesium, oxygen, neon, iron, and silicon.
The sun is not just hot. It’s far beyond hot. The outside layer of the sun is believed to be around 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit or 5,500 degrees Celsius.
But its core is much hotter. Its temperature could be as hot as 27 million degrees Fahrenheit or 15 million degrees Celsius!
The sun has different layers:
- Hot core
- Radiative zone
- Tachocline
- Convective zone
- Photosphere
- Atmosphere.
With a diameter of approximately 864,000 miles, the sun is 109 times as wide as the Earth. The sun is so big that the Earth could fit inside it 1 million times!
How Much Does a Person Weigh on the Sun?
If you could stand on the sun you would weigh approximately 27 times more than you do on Earth.
For example, a 200-pound (90 kg) person would weigh 5,400 pounds (2,449 kg) on the sun!
~ Fun Fact ~
The sun is approximately halfway through its life. Its currently burned off about half of its hydrogen and has enough left to burn through for another 5 billion years. I think it’s safe to scratch that off the list of things to be concerned about right now!
Resources:
https://socratic.org/questions/how-much-does-the-sun-weigh