The Sun is a star
Know that the Sun is a star, the closest star to Earth, and that it is at the centre of our solar system, with all eight planets orbiting around it
What a learner can do afterwards
- State that the Sun is a star, not a unique type of object
- Explain that the Sun appears bigger and brighter than other stars because it is much closer
- Describe the solar system as the Sun at the centre with planets orbiting around it
1 · Read
You already know the Sun warms our days, and stars twinkle in the night sky. The Sun is a star too. It is simply the one that lives closest to us.
Mia held a flashlight close to her face, and it looked huge and bright. She walked across the yard and held up the very same flashlight, and now it looked tiny. The Sun is like that flashlight. It is a star, the same kind of thing as the ones at night, it just happens to be nearby.
If the Sun were moved as far away as other stars, it would shrink down to a tiny twinkle too.
The Sun is a star, just the closest one, and it sits at the centre while all eight planets orbit around it.
More to read
Our Star: the Sun
The Sun is a star. It looks bigger and brighter than other stars only because it is much closer to us. The Sun is a huge ball of hot gas, mostly hydrogen and helium. Deep in its core, hydrogen atoms smash together to make helium. This fusion releases the energy that lights and warms our planet. The Sun sits at the center of our solar system. All eight planets, their moons, asteroids, and comets orbit around it. Without the Sun, Earth would be a frozen rock drifting in the dark.
What is a Star?
Stars are giant nuclear furnaces. They form when clouds of gas and dust collapse under gravity. As the cloud shrinks, the center gets hotter and hotter until fusion ignites. A star spends most of its life fusing hydrogen into helium. This steady burning can last millions or billions of years. The Sun is a middle-aged, medium-sized star. Bigger stars burn hotter and die younger. Smaller stars are cooler but can live for trillions of years. Every star you see at night is a sun to its own solar system.
Solar distance
The Sun is about 150 million kilometers (93 million miles) from Earth. Light takes just over 8 minutes to make the trip. That means when you look at the Sun, you see it as it was 8 minutes ago. The next closest star, Proxima Centauri, is about 40 trillion kilometers away. Its light takes over 4 years to reach us. This huge distance is why the Sun looks so much bigger and brighter than other stars.
Explore more
2 · Watch
En anglaisTake it off screen
Where it sits
Where this leads
Jobs that lean on this skill. Follow one to see everything it is built on.
8 questions wait behind this lesson, each with its answer explained. Every answer feeds the sky: stars light as they are learned, and dim when it is time to come back.