How Big Is The Sun?

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Eduardo Rampelotto Gatto Created by Henry Reich

[enoraskye]

In 8th grade, I did a scale model of the solar system. This included scale distance. In order to keep all the planets within school grounds, I had to make my sun the size of a tennis ball, and all my planets were nothing more than a speck of sand (or smaller). Mercury, Venus and Earth were in the Auditorium, where my sun was. Mars, Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus were in the Hall. Neptune in the Gym, and Pluto (which was still a planet when I was a kid) was placed just barely on school grounds, in the baseball field). I haven't done the math recently, but I want to say it was just around 1000 feet from my scale sun. My science teacher said it was the coolest solar system model she had ever seen.

[neilmcmahon]

It's so big that it's own gravitational field is keeping it alive.

[JasonWMorningwood]

Here is my script for this video:

INTRO
"So how big is the sun?"
"Huge"
OUTRO

[mgsquared]

Wait so if I put a pie in the sky about 30 ft. Up IT WILL HAVE THE SAME TIDAL FORCES OF THE MOON?!?!?!

[RoScFan]

The thing that amazes me more than anything out of all these things is how far away the moon is. The Earth and Moon seem much closer to each other.

[jeffdazle]

Make video on the biggest star in our galaxy

[josh]

Wow, I always underestimate how far away the moon really is... Awesome explanation MinutePhysics! :D

[ultravidz]

Now THIS is the kinda MinutePhysics I remember!

[electronicsNmore]

Good Video! Brings back the days when I spent many hours looking through my homemade 12" Newtonian.

[amshermansen]

How Big Is The Sun?
Second Answer: Like, Big. Really big.

[Akadius]

'Looks about the same size in the sky', that's some gud sciencing right thur! 1:22

[dryued]

Curiosity photographs martian solar eclipses?
It's even more awesome than I thought.

[dizzymetrics]

Imagine living on a planet with the same surface area of a star, it would be pretty dope having all that land, yet the Internet would be a weird place with all the lag from opposite sides.

[TheScholesie]

I'd never even considered that the sun affects tides. I feel stupid.

[homegirl]

Me after the quick scientific calculations towards the end of the video:

[iidirectxii]

How big is the Sun ? Answer - fucking huge.

[sone_]

I LOVE your channel. Every video gives me goose bumps and pushes me to peruse my goal of engineering science. Keep it up!

[kalewidman]

I knew that the sun was massive, but that video made me astonished on how garagntuan it is, especially compared to the earth. Then, it even discombobulates me more to know that the sun is smaller than most of the stars in the universe!

Amazing!!!

[stellarfirefly]

Huh, I always heard that the sun's effect on tides is roughly half that of the moon's.  Are they actually close to equal?

[boingyfly]

If Henry was a lecturer he'd do a whole year's worth of physics in one lecture. Damn. By the time their next video's out, I'll just have finished picking apart this one.