For something that makes human life itself possible, it seems like mostly all you ever hear about the sun is that it isn’t shining enough, or maybe it’s shining TOO MUCH. Here are some basic facts to ponder about how the sun relates to your puny existence….

The sun contains more than 99.8% of the total mass of the solar system, with Jupiter accounting for much of the remainder.

Only 55% of all Americans know that the sun is a star.

An area of the Sun’s surface the size of a postage stamp shines with with the brightness of about 120,000 hundred-watt light bulbs.

Approximately one million Earths can fit inside the Sun.

Light from the Sun reaches Earth in around 8 minutes.

The Sun showers the earth with 126 trillion horsepower of energy daily.

The core of the Sun is mostly helium.