Sun Facts

The Sun is our nearest star and we orbit it at a speed of about 30 kilometres per second. It looks different to the other stars in the sky because we are relatively close to it - 150,000,000 kilometres away. The next nearest star is around 38,000,000,000,000 kilometres away.

You must never look directly at the Sun as you could permanently damage your eyes.

There are nine planets orbiting the Sun. Earth is the third closest. The Earth's orbit around the Sun is elliptical. This means that it isn't a circle - it is more like a stretched circle. The Sun is not at the centre of this ellipse, but slightly to one side. Venus's orbit is almost a perfect circle. The Earth actually takes 365.25 days to complete this orbit. To account for this extra quarter of a day we add an extra day to the calendar every fourth year. This day is 29th February and we call this year a Leap Year.

Additional info

• In 1787 a Dr. Elliot said that the Sun was not a body of fire as everyone thought. Instead he thought it had water, land, plants, hills and good weather.
   
• Heraclitus (about 540-480BC) thought that the Sun was a bowl of fire.