An Overview of the Sun

The Sun is the centerpiece of our solar system, the gravity force that keeps everything together. Here is an overview of this source of our existence.

An Overview of the Sun

The Sun is a star, one of billions in the known universe. It is similar to other stars you see in the night sky, but is prominent in our lives because we orbit it once every 365 days.

The process pivotal in the creation of the Sun goes on to this very day. Roughly 4.5 billion years ago, a massive gas cloud surrounded by dust began to compress. As one small part gained in density, it started to produce a small gravitational pull. Over time, this sucked the rest of the gas and dust into an increasingly smaller area. Nobody is sure what first set off the gravity movement, but it may have been a supernova.

As the disk of material compressed, it created more gravity and sucked in more material. With spin induced, the disk produced heat. Throw in a bit of helium and trace elements and you have a cauldron that eventually became our Sun.

The actual process that fuels our Sun is called fusion. Fusion is fueled by the elements of the Sun to create what is essentially a ball of...