The Sun: Man's Friend & Foe

"The pursuit of truth and beauty is a sphere of activity in which we are permitted to remain children all our lives."

- Albert Einstein

The Sun is a star, but in comparison with many other stars it is just an average one. It is small and dim compared to many of the hundreds of billions of other stars in the universe. It is a mere speck in our Milky Way galaxy. And our galaxy is just one of the billions of galaxies that we know of. Our Galaxy is a giant disc of stars in the universe; our Sun is located along one of the spiral arms of this disc.

The fastest thing we know of in the universe is light; it travels at 186,000 miles per second. At that speed an airplane could circle the earth 7 and a half times in a second. Light travels about 6 trillion miles in one year. If we had a ship that could travel a billion times the speed of light, we might be able to visit 100 galaxies in one earth day; but even at that speed it would take us more than 250,000 years to visit all of the galaxies. Compared to that number of stars our Sun is less than a grain of salt in the salt sea. But if you compare our Sun to the dimensions of the Earth and moon the Sun is very impressive.

We would like to guide you through some of the ways our Sun is so influential to the Earth and its inhabitants from a scientific perspective. To do this we have a "Tour To The Center of the Sun" for you to take. Hop on board and enjoy the ride.