Solar Sizzle
The super hot center of the Sun blazes at 15,700,000°C (18,000,000°F) - more than 40,000 times as hot as boiling water. The surface of the Sun - the part we can see - is a relatively cool 5,500°C (9,900°F) - more than 15 times as hot as boiling water.

What a Blast
You'd need to explode 100,000,000,000 tons of dynamite every second to match the energy produced by the Sun.

Long Arm of the Sun
Even though it is about 13,500,000,000 km (8,200,000,000 miles) out, NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft is still within our Sun's sphere of influence. It has been more than 13 years since it passed the farthest point in the orbit of Pluto, our solar system's most distant known planet.

Long Ride
The Sun seems small when we look at it because it is 150,000,000 km (93 million miles) from Earth. If you could somehow fly an airplane to the Sun, it would take 26 years. Even super fast particles of light take eight minutes and 19 seconds to get from the Sun to Earth.

Cosmic Calculation
Our Sun is one of about 70,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (that's 70 sextillion) stars in the universe. Even though most are too faint to see, there are more stars out there in space than there are grains of sand on Earth.

That's All, Folks...
When the Sun starts to die, it will swell so big that it will almost engulf the Earth. Vast magma oceans will make our home planet a very unpleasant place to live. Fortunately, scientists predict the Sun is a little less than halfway through its lifetime. We have about 6.5 billion years to find a new home.