The Sun
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140 free The Sun trivia questions with answers — science & nature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
50 free The Sun trivia questions with answers. It's been worshipped by civilizations, studied by scientists, and powers all life on Earth. The Sun is a 4.6-billion-year-old nuclear furnace — and there's way more to it than you think.
30 of 140 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What informal name do astronomers give to a star of the Sun's type?
Yellow dwarf
Yellow dwarf is the informal name for a G-type main-sequence star, one that fuses hydrogen steadily for about 10 billion years before it swells into a giant.
Q 02Approximately how long does it take sunlight to reach Earth?
About 8 minutes
About 8 minutes, or 8 minutes 20 seconds on average, means nobody ever sees the Sun as it is now, only as it was when that light set out.
Q 03Which invisible rays in sunlight are the main cause of sunburn?
Ultraviolet
Ultraviolet rays cause both suntan and sunburn; ozone high in the atmosphere absorbs part of them, so a thinner ozone layer means more reach the ground.
Q 04What process powers the Sun and produces its energy?
Nuclear fusion
Nuclear fusion forces hydrogen nuclei together in the core at about 15 million °C, and the energy released then takes many thousands of years to work its way out to the surface.
Q 05What color would the Sun appear if viewed from space, without atmospheric interference?
White
The Sun actually emits white light. It appears yellow or orange from Earth's surface because the atmosphere scatters shorter (blue) wavelengths, making the remaining light look yellowish.
Q 06In ancient Egyptian mythology, who was the sun god?
Ra
Ra (also spelled Re) was the ancient Egyptian sun god and one of the most important deities in the Egyptian pantheon. He was believed to sail across the sky each day in a solar boat.
Q 07What name is given to the huge arches of cooler gas that hang above the Sun's edge, held up by magnetism?
Prominences
Prominences can hang in place for weeks or months; when the magnetic field holding one up becomes unstable, it can erupt into space as a coronal mass ejection.
Q 08What is the approximate surface temperature of the Sun?
About 5,500°C
About 5,500°C is the visible surface; oddly, the thin corona high above it is far hotter, a million degrees or more, and why remains one of the Sun's unsolved puzzles.
Q 09How many Earths could fit inside the Sun?
About 1.3 million
About 1.3 million Earths would fill the Sun's volume, as it is 109 Earths across; yet it weighs only as much as 330,000 Earths, because the Sun is far less dense.
Q 10A solar eclipse can happen only during which phase of the Moon?
New moon
New moon puts the Moon between Earth and the Sun, yet most months bring no eclipse, because its orbit is tilted about 5 degrees and its shadow usually passes above or below Earth.
Q 11Which layer of the Sun flashes reddish-pink for a few seconds at total eclipses?
Chromosphere
The chromosphere glows reddish-pink with hydrogen light but is normally drowned out by the glare beneath it, so it shows only when the Moon hides the Sun's bright disk.
Q 12What is the approximate age of the Sun?
About 4.6 billion years
About 4.6 billion years ago a spinning cloud of gas and dust collapsed and most of it fell to the centre to make the Sun, which is now roughly halfway through its life.
Q 13What will the Sun eventually become at the end of its life?
White dwarf
Q 21How long does the Sun take to complete one orbit around the centre of the Milky Way?
About 230 million years
About 230 million years makes one 'galactic year', so for all its age the Sun has carried its planets around the Milky Way only about 20 times since it formed.
Q 22Roughly how fast does the solar wind typically stream past Earth?
About 400 km/s
About 400 km/s is the usual slow wind, with fast streams near 750 km/s; together they blow a vast magnetic bubble that reaches far beyond the planets.
Q 23Roughly how strong is gravity at the Sun's surface compared with Earth's?
About 28 times
White dwarf is the end for every low- or medium-mass star: in about 5 billion years the Sun will swell into a red giant, throw off its outer layers and leave a core about the size of Earth.
Q 14Roughly how long does a typical coronal mass ejection take to travel from the Sun to Earth?
A few days
A few days is typical, though the fastest make the trip in 15 to 18 hours; on arrival a big one can light up auroras and disturb satellites and power grids.
Q 15The Sun holds about 99.8% of the solar system's mass; which planet accounts for most of the rest?
Jupiter
Jupiter holds more than twice the mass of all the other planets put together, yet the Sun still outweighs it roughly a thousand times over.
Q 16In Greek myth, who fell into the sea after flying too close to the Sun on wings held together with wax?
Icarus
Icarus flew too high on wings his father Daedalus built so they could escape King Minos of Crete; the island where his body washed ashore was later named Icaria.
Q 17What is the visible surface of the Sun called?
Photosphere
The photosphere is not a solid surface at all: the Sun is gas throughout, and this is simply the layer from which its light finally escapes into space.
Q 18About how long does one solar cycle of rising and falling sunspot numbers last?
About 11 years
About 11 years separates one sunspot peak from the next, and around each peak the Sun's magnetic field flips, its north and south poles swapping places.
Q 19After the Sun, which star lies closest to Earth?
Proxima Centauri
Proxima Centauri is just over four light-years away, roughly 250,000 times farther than the Sun, so the light we see from it set out more than four years ago.
Q 20Which of NASA’s spacecraft, launched in 2018, was built to fly through the Sun’s corona?
Parker Solar Probe
Parker Solar Probe flies behind an 11 cm carbon heat shield whose Sun-facing side reaches about 1,400°C, while the instruments in its shadow stay near room temperature.
About 28 times Earth's pull, roughly 274 m/s², so an 80 kg person would weigh more than two tonnes there, if there were anything solid to stand on.
Q 24In which arm of the Milky Way does the Sun sit?
Orion Arm
The Orion Arm, also called the Local Arm, was long written off as a mere spur between two major arms, but radio measurements reported in 2013 suggest it is far more substantial.
Q 25What was the Carrington Event of 1859?
A solar storm that crippled telegraphs
A solar storm that crippled telegraphs: wires sparked, operators got shocks and paper caught fire, while auroras glowed as far south as Cuba and Hawaii.
Q 26How long does the Sun's equator take to spin once around?
About 25 days
About 25 days at the equator, but well over 30 near the poles: the Sun is a ball of gas, not a solid, so different latitudes turn at different rates.
Q 27Where does the solar wind give out and interstellar space begin?
Heliopause
The heliopause is where the solar wind can no longer push back the thin gas between the stars; Voyager 1 crossed it in 2012, the first craft ever to do so.
Q 28What is the Latin word for the Sun?
Sol
Sol is the Latin word for the Sun; it survives in solar, solstice (from sol plus sistere, 'to stand still'), solarium and parasol.
Q 29Which spacecraft, launched in December 1995, was built to observe the Sun from the L1 point?
SOHO
SOHO, the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, launched on 2 December 1995 and took station at the L1 Lagrange point between Earth and the Sun, far outliving its planned two-year mission.
Q 30Roughly how long does a neutrino produced in the Sun's core take to reach the surface and escape?
About 2 seconds
About 2 seconds, since neutrinos barely interact with matter and fly straight out at nearly light speed, while light itself needs many thousands of years to work its way out.