Sun
The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is almost perfectly spherical and consists of hot plasma interwoven with magnetic fields. It has a diameter of about 1,392,684 km, about 109 times that of Earth, and its mass (about 2×1030 kilograms, 330,000 times that of Earth) accounts for about 99.86% of the total mass of the Solar System. Chemically, about three quarters of the Sun's mass consists of hydrogen, while the rest is mostly helium. The remainder (1.69%, which nonetheless equals 5,628 times the mass of Earth) consists of heavier elements, including oxygen, carbon, neon and iron, among others.
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Famous quotes containing the word sun:
“Once at thy Feast, I saw thee Pearle-like stand
‘Tween Heaven and Earth, where Heavens Bright glory all
In streams fell on thee, as a floodgate and
Like Sun Beams through thee on the World to Fall.
Oh! Sugar sweet then! My Deare sweet Lord, I see
Saints Heaven-lost Happiness restor’d by thee.”
—Edward Taylor (1645–1729)
“O, for an engine, to keep back all clocks,
Or make the sun forget his motion!”
—Ben Jonson (c. 1572–1637)
“And the sun and the stove and the mice and the gnawed paper
Made up the days and nights when I missed supper,
Paring my nails, looking over the farbelow street
Of tramways and bells. But one night I heard the feet.”
—Philip Larkin (1922–1986)