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Some interesting facts about the Sun*
Radius=7x105 km (109 x Earth’s radius)
Mass=2x1030 kg (300,000 x Earth)
Volume=1.4x1027 m3 (1.3 million times Earth!)
Avg. density=1.4 g/cm3 (water=1.0 g/cm3)
Density at center=151 g/cm3 (10 x solid lead!)
Photospheric press.=10-4 Earth atmosphere
Pressure at center=2x1011 Earth atmospheres!
Light (enrgy) coming from the central furnace takes about:
170,000 years to get through the radiative core to convection zone!
10 days to get through the convection zone to the photosphere!
then, 8 minutes to cover 150 million km (92 million miles) to the Earth!
* Lang, K.R. “Sun, Earth and Sky,” Springer-Verlag, 1995
Above is background material for archival reference only.
