Although extraordinary for us here on planet Earth, our sun is an ordinary star composed mainly of Hydrogen and Helium. Scientists tell us it is only one of the approximately 100 billion stars that exist in the Milky Way, our galaxy.
Scientists believe the sun began to take shape over 4 billion years ago from a molecular cloud. Without boring you with all the scientific theory, eventually the gases became hot enough for nuclear fusion, becoming what we know as our sun today – the center of our solar system.
Our sun is about 93 million miles away from us here on Earth and even traveling at light speed, it still takes the light emitted from the sun just over eight minutes to reach us here on Earth. Put another way, while you are watching that beautiful sunset, bear in mind that the sun actually ‘set’ more than eight minutes before you see those last rays dip below the horizon!