How big is the Sun?
Short answer: 1,392,684 km wide (696,342 km radius).
Long answer: It's hard to measure the exact size of the Sun because it's not solid and it doesn't have a clearly-defined edge, but these measurements are widely accepted:
- Equatorial radius: 696,342 km (109 × Earth)
- Equatorial circumference: 4.379×106 km (109 × Earth)
- Surface area: 6.09×1012 km2 (12,000 × Earth)
- Volume: 1.4 × 1027cubic metres (1,300,000 × Earth)
- Mass: 1.9891×1030 kg (333,000 × Earth)
You could fit about 1.3 million Earths inside the Sun.
Compared to other stars, the Sun is medium-sized. Some stars are less than a tenth of the Sun's size, some are hundreds of times bigger.
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Author: Dave Owen