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Thursday, February 3, 2011

Facts About Sun - strangefacts

  • Only 55% of all Americans know that the sun is a star
  • The Sun is made out of 92% hydrogen, 7% helium and the rest is other low number gasses
  • The Sun rotates once every 27 days and the Sun formed over four and a half billion years ago
  • The temperature at the core, or very middle, of the Sun, is about 27 million° Fahrenheit and the Sun’s diameter is about 870,000 miles wide
  • The Sun is 109 times wider than Earth, and is 333,000 times heavier and over one million Earths could fit inside the Sun
  • Astronomers once believed a planet named Vulcan existed between Mercury and the Sun
  • If you were standing on Mercury, the Sun would appear 2.5 times larger than it appears from Earth 
  • Some people start to sneeze if they are exposed to sunlight or have a light shined into their eye
  • 90% of people with visual impairments can see the sun, which makes them able to see 93 million miles away
  • A Chinese Scientist discovered that the Earth is round during the Han Dynasty by measuring the sun and moon's path in the sky
  • Human skin produces Vitamin D when exposed to sunlight, specifically ultraviolet B radiation  
  • Every day the Sun rises in the east, moves through the southern part of the sky and sets in the west
  • The largest known star is the monster VY Canis Majoris. This star is thought to be 1,800 times the size of the Sun; it would engulf the orbit of Saturn