The Sun
109×wider than Earth
The Sun is 1,392,700 km across — you could line up 109 Earths side by side across its face, and about 1.3 million Earths would fit inside it. It holds 99.86% of all the mass in the solar system.
▶ Visit the Sun in 3D
A very ordinary, utterly dominant star
The Sun is a G-type main-sequence star, 4.6 billion years old and about halfway through its life. Every second it fuses roughly 600 million tonnes of hydrogen into helium, converting four million tonnes of matter directly into light. That light takes around 100,000 years to fight its way out of the dense interior — then just 8.3 minutes to cross the void to Earth.
Every planet, moon, asteroid and comet combined — everything else in the solar system — adds up to just 0.14% of its mass. The solar system isn't a family of worlds; it's one star, with crumbs.
The Sun by the numbers
Diameter
1,392,700 km — 109× Earth
Volume
≈ 1.3 million Earths
Share of system mass
99.86%
Surface temperature
≈ 5,500 °C
Core temperature
≈ 15,000,000 °C
Age
4.6 billion years
Light to Earth
8.3 minutes
Light to Neptune
4.2 hours
In the interactive view, switch to True scale to see the Sun at its correct size next to the planets — then try Light speed and watch a photon crawl its way out to the worlds.
Keep going
✓ Facts verified July 2026
Every figure on this page is a real, rounded value checked against primary sources. Found something out of date? See how we keep it accurate.