Facts About the Sun for Kids
Everyone knows that the sun rises every morning and sets every night, but not as many people know just how important the sun is to us. It's actually a star--closer to Earth than any other star, which makes it shine much larger and brighter than the stars we see at night. The energy from it allows life to flourish on Earth; without it, nothing would be able to live here. Scientists and astronomers have discovered a number of fun details about it, which help explain how it works.
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Size
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As big as the Earth is, it's pretty tiny when compared with the sun. We could fit the whole planet inside the sun 109 times, and use over 11,000 Earths just to cover the surface of the sun. At its widest point, it measures 870,000 miles wide--almost 35 times that of Earth--and it weighs about 330,000 times as much as Earth as well.
Distance
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The sun stands a long ways away from us--almost 93 million miles. The distance is so great that it takes sunlight 8 minutes just to reach us (the light you're looking at from the sun is actually 8 minutes old). Even with such a great distance involved, its light and heat is enough to create life, keep us warm and even give us sunburns on a hot day.
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Energy
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The sun burns hydrogen, which is what creates such intense heat. In fact, most of it is composed of hydrogen, with the rest being helium and a smattering of heavier elements. It burns 4 million tons of hydrogen every second to create its light and heat. You'd have to blow up 100 billion tons of dynamite every second to generate the same amount of energy.
Age
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Like other stars, the sun goes through several stages in its life. Right now it's a main sequence star, which means its relatively young and is burning through its supply of hydrogen. In a few billion years, it will run out of hydrogen and become a red giant; the center of the sun will shrink while the surface grows larger and larger. Eventually, it will get so large that it will swallow the Earth right up, though by then there won't be any life left here.
Myths
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Ancient people made up numerous stories about the sun. In many cases it served as the centerpiece for their religion. The Egyptians believed that the sun was a creation of Ra--king of all the gods--while the sun goddess Amaterasu in Japan was the most powerful being in the universe. (The Japanese still use an image of the sun on their flag.) The ancient Aztecs thought that the sun died every night and needed to be resurrected, and the Greeks maintained that the sun was the chariot of the god Apollo, who drove it across the sky every day.
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