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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]
[1] [2] [3] This is a general physical law derived from empirical observations by what Isaac Newton called inductive reasoning. [4] It is a part of classical mechanics and was formulated in Newton's work Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (Latin for 'Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy' (the Principia)), first published on 5 ...
It was theorised that the gravitational potential energy from the contraction of the Sun could be its source of power. To calculate the total amount of energy that would be released by the Sun in such a mechanism (assuming uniform density), it was approximated to a perfect sphere made up of concentric shells. The gravitational potential energy ...
Putting the Sun immobile at the origin, when the Earth is moving in an orbit of radius R with velocity v presuming that the gravitational influence moves with velocity c, moves the Sun's true position ahead of its optical position, by an amount equal to vR/c, which is the travel time of gravity from the sun to the Earth times the relative ...
In astrophysics, gravitational compression is a phenomenon in which gravity, acting on the mass of an object, compresses it, reducing its size and increasing the object's density. In the core of a star such as the Sun, gravitational pressure is balanced by the outward thermal pressure from fusion reactions, temporarily halting gravitational ...
Solar physics is the branch of astrophysics that specializes in the study of the Sun.It intersects with many disciplines of pure physics and astrophysics.. Because the Sun is uniquely situated for close-range observing (other stars cannot be resolved with anything like the spatial or temporal resolution that the Sun can), there is a split between the related discipline of observational ...
The Sun has also undergone periodic changes in luminosity that can have a significant impact on the Earth. [108] The Maunder minimum, for example, is believed to have caused the Little Ice Age phenomenon during the Middle Ages. [109] At the center of the Sun is the core region, a volume of sufficient temperature and pressure for nuclear fusion ...
This list does not include small Solar System bodies, but it does include a sample of possible planetary-mass objects whose shapes have yet to be determined. The Sun's orbital characteristics are listed in relation to the Galactic Center , while all other objects are listed in order of their distance from the Sun.