The sun is an amazing thing – it gives us daylight, provides us with heat, affects our bodies and much, much more! While a lot of us have a basic understanding of the sun and its many powers, there are plenty of lesser known facts that might shock you. Without further ado, here are four facts about the sun that everyone should know.
It Helps Your Body To Absorb Vitamin D
Did you know that vitamin D is called the ‘Sunshine Vitamin’? This is because our bodies produce it when exposed to direct sunlight. In the UK, however, the sunlight isn’t always strong enough to produce good enough levels of vitamin D. During the colder months, in particular, the UK Department of Health advises that everyone should take vitamin D tablets for this reason.
It Contributes To 99% Of The Solar System’s Mass
If you have a basic understanding of the solar system, you’ll know just how big the sun is. While it’s not the biggest planet in the entire universe, it’s safe to say that it’s larger than most neighbors!
To put this into perspective, you might be shocked to learn that the sun contains 99.8% of the total mass in the solar system. That’s right – 99.8%!
With regards to size, it has a diameter of 1.4 million kilometers, making it 110 times bigger than the diameter of Earth. To cut out the confusion, this means that you could fit one million Earths inside the sun. This is incredibly hard for the human brain to comprehend!
It Takes Eight Minutes For Light To Travel From The Sun
We all know that the sun provides light for Earth, but what you may not know is that this isn’t an instant occurrence. It actually takes precisely eight minutes and twenty seconds for the sun’s light energy to reach the surface of the Earth. If you want to dig a bit deeper with this, that technically means that the sun is living in the future.
It Has A Powerful Magnetic Field
The sun works in mysterious ways – some of these ways are more obvious than others. For example, something that we can’t see with our own eyes is the sun’s magnetic energy.
The sun is a magnetic star, meaning it carries a whole lot of magnetic energy. This magnetic energy is created due to the extreme temperatures that the sun holds. If the solar flares lead to storms (due to holding such strong energy), they hit the earth and can cause beautiful displays. This includes the northern lights!
It’s safe to say that the power of the sun is incredibly varied, affecting every inch of life. We’d be here all day if we listed every amazing fact about the sun, but we hope these four satisfied your inner scientist!
