Did you know the Sun accounts for ~99% of our Solar Systems mass?

It takes 8 minutes and 20 seconds for the light from the Sun to reach the Earth, meaning if something were to happen to the Sun we wouldn't be able to observe it here until ~8 mins later! 2/

Now, imagine how large your country is and how large the continent is that your country is in.

Now imagine the entire Earth. Can you imagine 1,300,000 Earths?

Well, if you were to squash all of those Earths together with no space that would be exactly how large our Sun is! 3/

Why does our Sun shine?

The Sun started as a load of dust that eventually collapsed from the force of gravity causing there to be a lot of heat. 4/

But how did this heat last for so long?

Within elements, protons are positive and want to escape. However, in the atomic nucleus nuclear force binds the protons and neutrons. A nuclear reaction occurs when 2 nuclei or nuclear particles collide producing different products 5/

In nuclear reactions, nuclear force works over very short distances. If two hydrogen atoms come close to each other, they repel. They must be extremely close in order to interact. This only occurs in high pressure and temperature scenarios causing the nuclei to collide. 6/

Conditions like this occur in the center of our very large Sun. 7/

There are four types of nuclear reactions: Fission, Fusion, Nuclear Decay, and Transmutation. 8/

The Sun changes energy from its gravity to light. Hydrogen gas at the core of the Sun collides together so much that four hydrogen nuclei become a helium atom. This type of nuclear reaction is called Nuclear Fusion, and some of the mass from the hydrogen is left over as light! 9/