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Last Post 3/19/2008 7:00 AM by David Alexander

density of the sun

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3/19/2008 6:45 AM
How do find out how dense the sun is? Justin G (fwms)

David Alexander

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3/19/2008 7:00 AM
Good question Justin. From Newton's law of gravitation we can measure the mass of the Sun (2 x 10^30 kg). From observing the size of the Sun in the sky and knowing how far away it is we can measure its radius (7 x 10^8 m). We can now work out the average density which is just the mass divided by the volume. The volume of a sphere is (4.pi/3)r^3 = 1.4 x 10^27 m^3 for the Sun. This gives an average density of 1392 kg/m^3 or only about 40% denser than water. Cheers - David