OVERVIEW
] STARThe Sun is a G2V yellow main-sequence star, 1.000 from Earth, shining at apparent magnitude −26.74 (). It has a mass of 1.00 and a mean radius of 1.00 · 695 700 . It is catalogued as Sol. It has been known since antiquity.
Our star. A middle-aged yellow dwarf fusing 600 million tonnes of hydrogen every second, 4.6 billion years into a 10-billion-year life.
- WHAT IT IS
- Yellow main-sequence star
- HOW FAR
- 1.000
- HOW BIG
- 1.00 · 695 700
- HOW BRIGHT (V)
Its mean radius: half the width across.
Bright enough for the naked eye, under a sky dark enough.
THE MODEL
] CATALOGUED RADIUSCALCULATED · NOT AN OBSERVATION · CATALOGUED RADIUS · MEASURED TEMPERATURE · 5770 K · MEASURED RADIUS
Drawn from the catalogued radius and from the same properties the picture at the top of this page uses, at the distance a flight to it would stop. Drag it, or use the arrow keys, to look from another direction. The stars behind are the 498,631 this catalogue holds real distances for, at their real positions and drawn from where the camera actually is — so the constellations are wrong, and that is the point. This is the sky from there, not the sky from here.
IMAGES
] 4 FRAMES- Matúš Motlo
CC BY-SA 4.0 - NSO/AURA/NSF
CC BY 4.0 - Burkhard Mücke
CC BY-SA 4.0 - W.carter
CC BY-SA 4.0
OBSERVING
] FROM WHERE YOU AREWhat it takes to see Sun for yourself. Everything in this part of the page is worked out for a real horizon, a real night and the equipment you say you have.
Say where you are, and this line says when Sun is worth going out for.
THROUGH AN EYEPIECE
] 150 MM TELESCOPE · 25 MM EYEPIECENever point any of this at the Sun. An eyepiece concentrates everything the lens or mirror gathers, and a moment of it will take your sight permanently. A certified solar filter, over the front of the instrument and never at the eye end, or a pinhole projection onto paper. Today it is 31.6′ across. It is a disc to your eyes alone, and at 48× behind a filter it is big enough to look around inside.
- 48×
- 1.08
- 1.25
- 13.0
- 31.6
- SHOWS A DISC FROM
- no at all
- MAGNITUDE TODAY
- −26.74 · within reach
Computed for 2026-08-27 from the centre of the Earth, and from the mean radius the catalogue holds. A distance changes daily, so this width is a fact about that date and not about the body.
CATALOG DATA
] 10 FIELDSThe raw catalogue values, as the source published them, with the error bars where one was published — sorted by what each set of figures is about rather than by the order they happened to be stored in.
WHAT IT IS MADE OF
What the object is in itself, rather than how it happens to look from here.
- Spectral type
- Surface temperature
- 5772
- Surface gravity (log g)
- Metallicity ([Fe/H])
- 0.01
- Age
- 4.6×10⁹
- Rotation period
- 25.4
WHERE IT IS AND HOW IT MOVES
Position, motion across the sky and the size it covers on it. These are measurements of the object as seen from here, so every one of them depends on where here is.
- North pole (RA)
- 286.13
- North pole (Dec)
- 63.87
WHERE THESE FIGURES CAME FROM
Which catalogue, paper or model each of the fields above was read from, where the source named one.
- Stellar parameters from
- Spectroscopic determinations compiled from the literature (PASTEL, Soubiran+ 2016)
- Metallicity from
- One spectroscopic determination, compiled from the literature (PASTEL, Soubiran+ 2016)
ALSO KNOWN AS
] 2 DESIGNATIONS- Common name Sol
- Common name Sun
CITE THIS PAGE
] DR1This page is live and its numbers move when an upstream refreshes, so the citation names the release the rows belong to rather than the day you read them. The release itself is frozen, republished as a bundle, and is what a data-availability statement should point at.
SpaceCatalog. Sun [catalogue entry]. Data release DR1 (2026-08-21). https://spacecatalog.org/object/sun
@misc{spacecatalog_sun,
author = {{SpaceCatalog}},
title = {{Sun}},
howpublished = {SpaceCatalog, data release DR1 (2026-08-21)},
year = {2026},
url = {https://spacecatalog.org/object/sun},
note = {Catalogue entry, data release DR1 (2026-08-21). Values from SpaceCatalog curated data.}
}The values above were taken from SpaceCatalog curated data — CC-BY-4.0. Citing this page does not replace citing that catalogue.
RECENT ACTIVITY
] 3 ITEMS- Starstruck: NASA Research Shows How Sun’s Ancient History Shaped Earth2026-08-24 · NASA · MISSION UPDATE
- Starstruck: NASA Research Shows How Sun’s Ancient History Shaped Earth2026-08-24 · NASA · RELEASE
- NASA’s COFFIES Uses AI to Predict Storm-Causing Active Regions on Sun2026-08-14 · NASA · MISSION UPDATE
NASA · UPDATED DAILY