• Question: what is the diamiter of the sun

    Asked by poisen2 to Adam, Catherine, Karen, Leila, Nazim on 14 Mar 2012. This question was also asked by tonieastup123.
    • Photo: Leila Battison

      Leila Battison answered on 12 Mar 2012:

      The sun is 1,392,000 km in diameter. That’s over 100 times the diameter of the earth, and you could fit well over a million Earths inside.

      But in about 5 billion years time, it will expand to twice its current size to become a red giant, probably consuming the Earth and burning it to a crisp. But don’t worry, humans will probably be long gone – extinct or travelling the universe, by then!

    • Photo: Adam Stevens

      Adam Stevens answered on 12 Mar 2012:

      I would have to look it up.

    • Photo: Karen Masters

      Karen Masters answered on 12 Mar 2012:

      The Sun’s diameter is roughly 100 times that of the Earth. Other than that I’d have to use Google or wikipedia to look it up! 😉

    • Photo: Nazim Bharmal

      Nazim Bharmal answered on 14 Mar 2012:

      The sun is quite big, like Leila, Adam, and Catherine have said: I would have said 1,600,000 km diameter compared to 12,800 km for the Earth.

      But the sun is quite a middle-sized star. The smallest stars, ignoring the really odd ones like black holes or neutron stars, are about the size of the Earth. The biggest stars like Betelgeuse (pronounced ‘Beatle Juice’) are huge, nearly 1,000,000,000 km in diameter or 100,000 times the size of the Earth.

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