Location

Sun Location: 41.260902, -111.76997, What3Words: ///starring.fundraising.obstinate

Address: 198 S 7400 E Huntsville Utah 84317 northeast corner of intersection.

Surprise! The Sun is represented by the arch (not the sphere). If the solar system were shrunk roughly to the size of Ogden Valley the Sun would be roughly 12 feet 8 inches in diamater, making Mercury about the size of a marble, Earth the size of a golf ball and pluto the size of a pea.

This is the largest object in our solar system. It contains 99.8 % of the mass of the entire solar system. The Sun’s volume is so large it would take 1.3 million Earths to fill it.

Roughly 4.5 billion years ago (almost one-third the universe’s age), a star-forming cloud of dust and gas,  or a “nebula,” created our Sun—a hot glowing ball of hydrogen and helium plasma at the center of our solar system. Both the Sun and solar system are made of recycled material from larger stars that died eons ago. This left-over stardust makes up everything around you. Even your own body is composed of stardust!

Although our Sun is considered a yellow dwarf, it is an average-sized star. It resides in the suburbs of our Milky-Way Galaxy. As our Sun was forming, a frisbee-like accretion disk developed around it. Earth, the other planets, asteroids, and all other debris in our solar system grew out of the matter from this disk. Yet, our Sun is the prime mover in our solar system. Its gravitational pull holds the solar system together. Its gravity  keeps everything from the biggest planets to the smallest bits of debris in orbit around it. Most importantly for us,  its billion-years stability in the Milky Way has sustained  life on Earth.

It’s no wonder the Sun has inspired us since ancient times. It has claimed a central role in cultural mythologies and religions around the world, including the ancient Egyptians, the Aztecs of Mexico, Native American tribes of North and South America, the Chinese, and others. In modern times, we remember and join in the song  “Here Comes the Sun,” as we visit our Sun in Huntsville.