At 2:37 P.M on November 12th 1960, astronomers in Michigan detected a brilliant explosion on the face of
the sun. Six hours
later that day, a gigantic cloud of solar hydrogen gas ten million miles across and still trailing half way back to
the sun, 93 million miles away, collided with the earth at a speed of 4,000 miles a second.
Though inaudible, the collision started a violent chain reaction of disturbances around the earth. Electrical equipment went crazy, compass needles wavered erratically and light bulbs went on and off as though there was a storm yet the sky was as clear as ever.All these was caused by an electrical and magnetic storm of mammoth proportion which had been discharged by the sun.
The power of the sun staggers imagination. In one second, the sun produces more energy than what man has used since the beginning of civilization. What we receive here on earth is only one half of a billionth of the sun's total energy. The sun is like a slow burning hydrogen bomb. It is scientifically argued that the sun produces per day less energy than a human body when taken pound for pound.
Triangulating with other celestial objects has helped astronomers gauge the size of the sun which is said to 864,000 miles in diameter. The earth's diameter is only 8,000 miles. This means the sun could hold up 1,300,000 earths!
The sun is entirely gaseous but its density at the center is about 11.4 times that of lead. X-ray light traveling from the core of the earth will follow a zigzag path thus taking upto 20,000 years to reach the sun's surface. The core is approximated to heat upto 16,000,000 degrees centigrade.Never the less, the sun is an ordinary star, a yellow dwarf. It is midway between the largest and the smallest, the hottest blue and the coolest red stars.
In time the sun's core will deplete its hydrogen. It is estimated that the proportion is now down to a third. When the core will be spent, the thermo nuclear will spread outward towards the surface. this will cause the sun to expand and blow out and then it will become a giant red dwarf like Antares. It will be a monstrous ball of rarefied, red hot gas, large enough to engulf the nearest four planets of the solar system.
No fear though for now, this is likely to occur five billion years later from now.