10 Facts About The Universe That Make Your Brain Hurt

8. Sunlight Is 30,000 Years Old

In your living room you flick a lamp switch, the light is born and a nano second later energy strikes your face. Sunlight works like the lights in your house only the light takes about eight minutes to get to you across space, right? Wrong. It is correct about the eight minutes, but we imagine that the light itself is something like fire - there's a bit of fission and instantly the light travels on its merry way space-ward. In fact the sunlight that you feel when you go out at midday was born 30,000 years ago inside the core of the sun. The fusion, or 'fire making' in our analogy, actually takes place at the core of the sun during some of the most violent reactions known in the universe. The bright yellow bit that we see hanging in the sky is no more than the after effect of that. Size matters in this one. The sun is 333,000 times 'heavier' than the Earth and 109 times bigger. The diameter of the sun is around 870,000 miles and the temperature on the Sun's surface reaches way beyond 4000 degrees Celsius, (10,000 degrees Fahrenheit). The mass of the sun is huge and it takes an almost unbelievable 30,000 years for the energy produced to take its turn in getting to the surface. Fortunately, the sun can still keep doing this awesome feat for about 5 billion more years. It consumes hydrogen presently until it runs out and will then begin to burn helium alone, which will actually cause the sun to turn supernova. If you're around in 5 billion years then you will need to get out of the way pretty quick to avoid being swallowed up in the explosion.