Size of the Sun

To measure the radius of the Sun is easy. You just measure its angular size as seen in the sky. Then knowing the distance to the Sun, you can calculate the Sun's radius.

I wrote the formula for calculating the Sun's radius with a calculator here, but if you don't need trigonometry! You could just use a scale drawing and measure on your drawing.

The radius is about 0.7 x 10⁶ km, about 100 times the radius of the Earth.

Davison E. Soper, Institute of Theoretical Science, University of Oregon, Eugene OR 97403 USA soper@bovine.uoregon.edu