The sun is the star at the centre of our solar system – the Milky Way. It is nearly a perfect sphere of hot plasma and is made up of roughly 74 per cent of hydrogen, 25 per cent of helium and 1 per cent of a mixture of elements. The star takes 600 tonnes of this hydrogen and fuses it into helium every second, converting matter into energy – or light and heat.
The sun currently sits in what is known as the main sequence, a band of stars in hydrostatic equilibrium – meaning it is resting at a constant point due to external forces such as gravity.
Louise Harra, Professor of Solar Physics at UCL Mullard Space Science Laboratory, revealed how it has been comfortably placed here for more than 4.5 billion years, but that will not last forever.
She told BBC Radio 4 listeners on a 2015 episode of "In Our Time" called "The sun" that it is "quite a boring star,
