Drawing pin
A drawing pin-sized – a very small of the burning gases from our Sun could kill a man from 400 miles away. (400 miles away = “small burning in London, you die at Glasgow” – extremely heat!)
Diameter of the Sun
The diameter of the sun is 864,000 miles wide  - 109 Earths would fit across the width of our Sun.
Our Sun has three layers;
Radiative Zone  –  innermost layer of nuclear fusion.
Convective Zone  –  the heat moves slowly from the inner layer to the surface.
Photosphere  –  the layer that we can see.
No oxygen in space, how does the Sun “burn“?
- The Sun does not “burn” – at Earth, we think of logs in a fire or paper burning by oxygen, but no oxygen in space!
- The Sun glows because it is a very big ball of gas, and a process called nuclear fusion is taking place in its core.
- Nuclear fusion occurs when one proton smashes into another proton so hard that they stick together… to make it glow and release some energy (light and heat) as well.
- Hydrogen really doesn’t burn, it fuses, into helium – so no oxygen is required!
Back to `Did you know?` page