What are Some Prominent Features of the Sun?
The Sun, also known as Sol, is the gigantic ball of burning gas located at the center of the solar system, in case you hadn’t noticed. Accounting for 99.8% of the solar system’s mass, the Sun is continuously fusing four million tons of superheated hydrogen into helium every second. Helium already makes up 25% of its mass. The Sun is about halfway in its life cycle between its birth and its future transformation into a red giant star, with a diameter as wide as the orbit of Earth. After it exhausts its nuclear fuel in about five billion years, most of its atmosphere will escape, forming a planetary nebula and leaving behind a tiny white dwarf. Called a “stellar remnant,” a white dwarf is about half the mass of the Sun but with a volume comparable to the Earth. Lacking any nuclear fuel, it slowly disperses its residual heat over many billions of years, eventually becoming a black dwarf. This life cycle is typical for low and medium-mass stars like the Sun. The Sun is almost a perfect sph
