Basic Solar Properties

Basic
Solar Properties

Basic Solar Properties

Diameter (photosphere) 1,391,980 km

Mass 1.99 x 10³³ g

Average Density 1.41 g/cm³

Luminosity 3.83 x 10³³ erg/sec

Rotation Period 25 days (equator)

Surface Temperature 5,800 K (effective)

Spectral Class G2 V

Apparent Visual Magnitude - 26.7

Absolute Visual Magnitude + 4.8

Mean Distance (Earth) 149,597,892 km

Some basic solar properties are summarized in the table to the right. Some of the quantities given there will be defined later but values are included here for reference.
The following list contains some basic Web references for solar information:

SOHO Homepage
Recent SOHO images
Big Bear Solar Observatory
General Solar Data FTP Site
SOHO Movie Theater for Solar Activity
Space Environment Center gopher server
Solar data for the last 30 days.
Many of these sites provide updates on solar information and images on a daily or even more timely basis. Thus, they allow almost real-time monitoring of the Sun for anyone with Web access.