Sunlight and shadows.
The International Astronomical Union is the international body of astronomers that, since 1922, has given itself the responsibility for naming celestial bodies. And the IAU does recognise official names for the major planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune) and Earth’s satellite (Moon). It also officially names dwarf planets such as Pluto and Ceres, moons of planets, minor planets (asteroids), comets and – beyond our solar system – distant stars, the exoplanets that orbit them, and vast nebulae, galaxies and other objects.
But, to my knowledge, the IAU has never officially sanctioned a name for our sun.
Just to confuse things, though, the IAU suggests we all use Sun and Moon, rather than the lowercase sun and moon. As a result, most astronomers do capitalize these words (frequently along with other non-standard capitalizations such as Galaxy, Solar System and Universe), but most media organizations (which tend to use media stylebooks such as the AP Stylebook) don’t.
So that light from the sun took 8 minutes 19 seconds at light speed to get here.
In comparison travelling 100 miles per hour from earth to the sun, it would take just over 106 years.
Sunlight and shadows.
The International Astronomical Union is the international body of astronomers that, since 1922, has given itself the responsibility for naming celestial bodies. And the IAU does recognise official names for the major planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune) and Earth’s satellite (Moon). It also officially names dwarf planets such as Pluto and Ceres, moons of planets, minor planets (asteroids), comets and – beyond our solar system – distant stars, the exoplanets that orbit them, and vast nebulae, galaxies and other objects.
But, to my knowledge, the IAU has never officially sanctioned a name for our sun.
Just to confuse things, though, the IAU suggests we all use Sun and Moon, rather than the lowercase sun and moon. As a result, most astronomers do capitalize these words (frequently along with other non-standard capitalizations such as Galaxy, Solar System and Universe), but most media organizations (which tend to use media stylebooks such as the AP Stylebook) don’t.
So that light from the sun took 8 minutes 19 seconds at light speed to get here.
In comparison travelling 100 miles per hour from earth to the sun, it would take just over 106 years.