Approximately 5 billion years and fewer than 333,000 times the mass of Earth, discovering the charming history of the sun, the heart of our solar system and the driving force of life on Earth. The Sun is by far the brightest object in the sky. It is so bright during the day its light drowns nearly everything else in space. The sun is so powerful that even from Earth, their light can damage eyesight. So never look at the Sun directly or through a telescope.
The best time to appreciate the majesty of the sun from Earth during a solar eclipse occurs. Then the Moon passes in front of the Sun and so it disappears temporarily from the sky. Life on Earth depends entirely on the energy it receives from the sun.
This energy is produced when hydrogen atoms fuse inside the Sun to form helium. The Sun consumes four million tons of hydrogen every second.
Still, it’s so big that our sun has enough fuel to keep shining for another five billion years. The solar energy production is estimated at 386 billion, billion megawatts. So in 15 minutes the sun radiates as much energy as mankind consumes in all forms, for a whole year.
