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- Comets' tails point away from the Sun at all times. So, when a comet is moving away from the Sun, its tail is actually leading. Comet tails are caused by dust and gas being lost from the comet and then pushed away from the Sun by the solar wind (charged particles moving out from the Sun) and by radiation pressure from the Sun.
- Lightning is 5 times hotter than the Sun.
- The Earth is actually closer to the Sun during the Northern hemisphere's winter (when the weather is colder), and further away during the warm summer months!
- Our sun is expected to last about 5 billion more years. It has already been in existence about 4.5 billion years.
- The sun is 93 million miles from earth, yet it's 270,000 times closer than the next nearest star.
- The sun contains 99% of all the mass in our solar system.
- During a total solar eclipse, local temperatures can drop up to 20F degrees.
- A cosmic year is the amount of time it takes the Sun to revolve around the center of the Milky Way, about 225 million years.
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