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The Sun is 1.4 million kilometers (4.643 light-seconds) wide, about 109 times wider than Earth, or four times the Lunar distance, and contains 99.86% of all Solar System mass. The Sun is a G-type main-sequence star that makes up about 99.86% of the mass of the Solar System. [26]
The solar mass (M ☉) is a standard unit of mass in astronomy, equal to approximately 2 × 10 30 kg (2 nonillion kilograms in US short scale). It is approximately equal to the mass of the Sun. It is often used to indicate the masses of other stars, as well as stellar clusters, nebulae, galaxies and black holes. More precisely, the mass of the ...
Over 99.86% of the Solar System's mass is in the Sun and nearly 90% of the remaining mass is in Jupiter and Saturn. There is a strong consensus among astronomers [e] that the Solar System has at least nine dwarf planets: Ceres, Orcus, Pluto, Haumea, Quaoar, Makemake, Gonggong, Eris, and Sedna.
The solar mass (M ☉), 1.988 92 × 10 30 kg, is a standard way to express mass in astronomy, used to describe the masses of other stars and galaxies. It is equal to the mass of the Sun , about 333 000 times the mass of the Earth or 1 048 times the mass of Jupiter .
The central mass became increasingly hot and dense, eventually initiating thermonuclear fusion in its core. The Sun is a G-type main-sequence star (G2V) based on spectral class, and it is informally designated as a yellow dwarf because its visible radiation is most intense in the yellow-green portion of the spectrum.
Coronal mass ejections are usually visible in white-light coronagraphs. A coronal mass ejection ( CME ) is a significant ejection of plasma mass from the Sun's corona into the heliosphere . CMEs are often associated with solar flares and other forms of solar activity , but a broadly accepted theoretical understanding of these relationships has ...
This combination of circumstances produces an outer convection zone, the top of which is visible in the Sun as solar granulation. Low-mass main-sequence stars, such as red dwarfs below 0.35 solar masses, [3] as well as pre-main sequence stars on the Hayashi track, are convective throughout and do not contain a radiation zone. [4]
Heliophysics combines the science of the Sun, corona, heliosphere and geospace, and encompasses a wide variety of astronomical phenomena, including "cosmic rays and particle acceleration, space weather and radiation, dust and magnetic reconnection, nuclear energy generation and internal solar dynamics, solar activity and stellar magnetic fields ...