Is our sun a small medium or large star?

Answer 1

Because it's so much closer to us than other stars.

The nearest star outside our solar system is about 278,000 times as far from us as the sun is.

And all the others are even farther than that.

If you take a little flashlight, hold it in front of your face, and shine it at your eye, it'll look

even bigger and brighter than the sun. It's all a matter of how near or far the object is.

Answer 2

Yes I agree but also The Sun is also very bright. It is a type of star. Stars produce a lot of energy, which makes them shine. The Sun looks bigger and brighter than any other star because it is closer to Earth. Its brightness means that we can see it, even though it is far away.

Answer 3

The sun in our solar system is so big because it has collected many many particles that are floating around in space. This is done when a particle gets toward the sun's gravitational pull. Then, the sun grows. ---- The sun actually is not all that big when compared to other stars in our universe. There are stars that are HUGE compared to the sun. It is definitely very large when viewed by humans because humans are small.

See link for pictorial representation of our sun compared to the largest star know (VY Canis Majoris)

Part of the reason why the Sun appears so large is because its mass is much greater then that of the Earth and its density is relatively low. The Sun also appears very large given its mass because the Sun is actually a controlled 'explosion'. Inside the Sun a process called fusion is taking place, fusing atoms together and releasing a lot energy. This energy appears much like an explosion, lots of heat and light. However, much of the 'explosion' is kept away from the Earth by the Sun's own gravity; just like Earth holds everyone to the ground, the Sun holds the explosions to itself. Eventually, in several billion years, the Sun will begin burning its fuel even faster with bigger and faster explosions. The bigger explosions will make it harder for the Sun's gravity to hold in the explosions and the Sun will grow in size. In the future the Sun will actually grow in size until it has consumed Mercury and Venus and possible Earth.

Answer 4

Brightness is due to three reasons;

#1 ; The distance the star is from the Earth.

#2 ; The size of the star.

#3 ; Age of the star.

Our Sun , a star, is only so bright because of its nearness to us(Earth).

It is also the biggest object in the Solar system.

Compared to other stars it is of only average size, and is about halfway through its life-cycle. We'll be all 'dead and gone', by the time the Sun comes to the end of its life.

Have a look at the Herzsprung-Russell diagram of stellar sizes and life-cycles.

Answer 5

The sun is going to slowly expand before it dies; first, in several billion years it will become a red giant. There may be a nova flash expelling the outer solar shell, but our sun is too small to supernova. The Chandrasakhar mass limit for a supernova is about 1.4 solar masses. Afterwards our sun will shrink to a white dwarf gradually fading to a black dwarf.

Although the red giant stage will not begin for another four billion years, astrophysicists estimate the gradual increase in the size and temperature of the sun should render earth unsuitable for life about only one billion years from now.

Answer 6

Actually, the sun is a medium sized star. It's neither significantly bigger nor substantially smaller

than the majority of other stars that have been measured.

Answer 7

Actually the Sun is a very average star. It is a medium yellow star and falls right in the center of star classifications. It is very stable and will burn for several more billion years. The uncommon stars are the supergiants.

Answer 8

Take a friend with you to the top of a tall building, and look over the side at all the people on the street far below. Now look at your friend. Notice that, standing next to you, he appears larger than all the "ants" crawling on the street many stories below.

Our beloved sun is 8.3 light minutes away from us. The next nearest star is 4.5 light YEARS away. It's no wonder our sun appears so huge--we're practically right up against it, compared to any other star.

Answer 9

This gets a little complicated, because we have to address the issue of "compared to what?"

At one time it was generally thought that the Sun was a relatively small and insignificant star.

However, we were judging by the stars we can see, which almost by definition are NOT small and insignificant... if something's 100 light years away, and we can still see it, it must be at least reasonably impressive.

We've since discovered that about 85% of all stars are smaller than the Sun. However, of those that are larger, some of them are much, much larger. The largest star currently known is VY Canis Majoris, which is a "red hypergiant" and has a radius somewhere between 600 and 2000 times as large as that of the Sun (estimates vary). The smaller of those two mean that, if the Sun were replaced by VY Canis Majoris, Mars (and of course Earth, Venus, and Mercury also) would be inside it. If the larger estimate is correct, Jupiter and even Saturn would be inside it.

All this means that the Sun is quite small compared to the largest stars, but fairly large compared to the smallest, and there are many more stars smaller than the Sun than there are larger than it.

Answer 10

It is closer to us than the other stars so we get a much, much larger fraction of its light compared to other stars. The other stars are so far away that even stars that are much brighter than our sun can only transmit such a small fraction of their light that the tiny fraction we get is consequently much less than the larger fraction of our somewhat dimmer sun.