The Sun

The True Motion of

the Sun

in light of the Quran

and Science

By Dr. Hussein Mhanna

{Indeed, in the alternation of the night and the day and [in] what Allah has created in the heavens and the earth are signs for a people who fear Allah} 10:6

{Do they not look into the realm of the heavens and the earth and everything that Allah has created and [think] that perhaps their appointed time has come near? So in what statement hereafter will they believe?} 7:185

History Humanity's most fundamental

understanding of the Sun is as the luminous disk in the sky, whose presence above the horizon creates day and whose absence causes night.

In many prehistoric and ancient cultures, the Sun was thought to be a solar deity or other supernatural phenomenon. Worship of the Sun was central to civilizations such as the ancient Egyptians, the Inca of South America and the Aztecs of what is now Mexico. In religions such as Hinduism, the Sun is still considered a God.

Sol, the Sun, from a 1550 edition ofGuido Bonatti's Liber astronomiae.

Names

The names for the Sun and its planets in the Western world are derived from the naming practices of the Romans, which ultimately derive from those of the Greeks and the Babylonians.

The Greek practice of grafting of their gods' names onto the planets was almost certainly borrowed from the Babylonians. 

Today, most people in the western world know the planets by names derived from the Olympian pantheon of gods.

When the Romans studied Greek astronomy, they gave the planets their own gods' names: Mercurius (for Hermes), Venus (Aphrodite), Mars (Ares),  Iuppiter (Zeus) and Saturnus (Cronus).

The gods of Olympus, after whom the Solar System's planets are named

Planets and days of the week Some Romans believed that the seven gods after whom the planets

were named took hourly shifts in looking after affairs on Earth. The order of shifts went Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sun, Venus, Mercury, Moon (from the farthest to the closest planet). Therefore, the first day was started by Saturn (1st hour), second day by Sun (25th hour), followed by Moon (49th hour), Mars, Mercury, Jupiter and Venus.

Because each day was named by the god that started it, this is also the order of the days of the week in the Roman calendar and still preserved in many modern languages.

In English, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday are straightforward translations of these Roman names. The other days were renamed after Tiw, (Tuesday) Wóden (Wednesday), Thunor (Thursday), and Fríge (Friday), the Anglo-Saxon gods considered similar or equivalent to Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, and Venus, respectively.

Earth is the only planet whose name in English is not derived from Greco-Roman mythology. Because it was only generally accepted as a planet in the 17th century, there is no tradition of naming it after a god.

Planets of the Solar System

Terrestial Planets

The Gas giants

Sun and Earth

Relative to Earth it is the brightest object in the sky (13 billion times brighter than the next brightest star, Sirius)

Mean distance from Earth 149,600,000 km

Light travels from the Sun to Earth in about 8 minutes and 19 seconds.

The real color of the Sun is: Color:   white but from Earth it appears yellow because of atmospheric scattering of blue light.)

Sun as seen from outer space

Sun as seen from Earth

Sunrise

Sunset

Size

Mean diameter: 1,392,684 km

Equatorial radius: 696,342 km

= 109 × Earth

Equatorial circumference 4.379×106 km

= 109 × Earth

Volume 1,412,000,000,000,000,000 km3

= 1300000 × Earth

Mass 1,989,100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 Tons

= 99.86% of the total mass of the Solar System

= 333,000 × Earth

You think our Sun is

BIG?!

The Sun doesn’t look that big compared to the other big guys out there!

The Sun compared to the largest known star: VY Canis Majoris

The Sun compared to the largest discovered star VY Canis Majoris

VY Canis Majoris RadiusEstimates of the star's radius range from around 1,500 to 2,000 times larger than the sun, if VY Canis Majoris was placed in the center of our solar system it would reach the orbit of Saturn!

Life of the sun

Age 4.57 billion years

Years left: 7 billion years

The size of the current Sun (now in the main sequence) compared to its estimated size during its red giant phase in the future

Temperature of the Sun

Center: ≈ 15,700,000 °C (28,260,000 F)

Surface: ≈ 5505 °C (10,000 F)

Shape and Rotation

Shape: almost perfectly spherical

(Earth is an oblate spheroid, a sphere flattened along the axis from pole to pole such that there is a bulge around the equator)

Since the Sun consists of a plasma and is not solid, it rotates faster at its equator than at its poles. This behavior is known as differential rotation. The period of this actual rotation is approximately 25.6 days at the equator and 33.5 days at the poles

Photospheric composition

Hydrogen 73.46%

Helium 24.85%

Oxygen0.77%

Carbon 0.29%

Iron 0.16%

Neon 0.12%

Nitrogen 0.09%

Silicon 0.07%

Magnesium 0.05%

Sulfur 0.04%

The structure of the Sun

How does it work?

It generates its energy by nuclear fusion of hydrogen nuclei into helium. In its core, the Sun fuses about 620 million metric tons of hydrogen each second.

The fusion rate in the core is in a self-correcting equilibrium: a slightly higher rate of fusion would cause the core to heat up more and expand slightly against the weight of the outer layers, reducing the fusion rate and correcting the perturbation; and a slightly lower rate would cause the core to cool and shrink slightly, increasing the fusion rate and again reverting it to its present level.

Sunlight

How old is sunlight by the time it reaches the surface?

It takes light between 10,000 and 170,000 years to escape. 

Light escapes the sun's core through a series of random steps as it is absorbed and emitted by atoms along the way

Sunlight is produced through nuclear reactions in the sun's core. Originally born as energetic gamma rays, after billions of collisions with matter, this radiation reaches the surface and escapes into space.

Sun relative to our Galaxy

Mean distance from Milky Way core 270,000,000,000,000,000 km ( 28,000 light-years)

Galactic period 225–250 million years

Velocity ≈ 220 km/s or 782,000 km/hour (orbit around the center of the Galaxy)

Compare to the velocity of Earth: 108,000 km/h

The Sun orbits the center of the Milky Way at a distance of approximately 24000–26000 light-years from the galactic center, completing one orbit in about 225–250 million years.

The last time that the Sun was in its current position in space around the Milky Way, dinosaurs ruled the Earth!

This Sun orbit has only happened 20.4 times since the Sun itself formed 4.6 billion years ago.The Sun  only has another 31 orbits it can make before it runs out of fuel in 7 billion years.

Illustration of the Milky Way galaxy, showing the location of the Sun

The Apex of the Sun's Way

The Apex of the Sun's Way, or the solar apex, is the direction that the Sun travels through space in the Milky Way, relative to other nearby stars. The general direction of the Sun's galactic motion is towards the star Vega in the constellation of Lyra at an angle of roughly 60 sky degrees to the direction of the Galactic Center.

The Sun's orbit around the Galaxy is expected to be roughly elliptical with the addition of perturbations due to the galactic spiral arms and non-uniform mass distributions. In addition the Sun oscillates up and down relative to the galactic plane approximately 2.7 times per orbit.

The Sun's motion about the center of mass of the Solar System is complicated by perturbations from the planets.

The barycenter is just outside the volume of the Sun when Jupiter and Saturn (the two planets with the greatest masses) are roughly in the same direction, as seen from the Sun. When they are in opposite directions, and the other planets are aligned appropriately, the barycentre can be very close to the centre of the Sun.

Every few hundred years this motion switches between prograde and retrograde.

The actual motion of the sun(shown by the green line)

How does the Quran describe the motion

of the Sun?

And the sun runs [on course] toward its stopping point. That is the determination of the Exalted in Might, the Knowing.

Sahih International

And the sun runs on its fixed course for a term (appointed)

Muhsin Khan

And the sun runs on to a term appointed for it

Shakir

And the sun runs his course for a period determined for him

Yusuf Ali

Yasin:38

In verse 38 of sura Yasin, Allah uses the arabic verb “tajri” to describe the motion of the sun.

This verb is used in arabic describe “running” of someone or something, like running of a boy, an animal…

“…the sun runs” (Yasin:38)

The “running” of the Sun resembles that of a horse

That same arabic word “tajri” used in verse 38 of sura Yasin, can be used to describe the streaming of water in a river…

“Star streaming” is a term that was used recently by astrologist to describe the motion of stars including our Sun.

This shows the accuracy of the Quranic word “tajri” describing the motion of the Sun…

Star Streaming

So it’s as if the stars (including our Sun) are swimming or floating in huge cosmic rivers!

Does the Quran say anything about that?!

 It is not allowable for the sun to reach the moon, nor does the night overtake the day, but each, in an orbit, is swimming.

Sahih International

They all float, each in an orbit.

Muhsin Khan

Yasin:40

Verse 40 of sura Yasin amazingly uses the verb “yasbahon” to describe the motion of stars and planets.This verb means: to swim!

You see again how accurate the Quranic description is!

The course of the sun around the Milky Way Galaxy

So the Sun seems to be swimming in the galaxy just like someone would swim in a pool!

“They all float” (Yasin:40)

“Floating” of the a ship compared to “floating” of the Sun

“They all float” (Yasin:40)

An image from NASA assures the existence of numerous rivers of stars in our galaxy.

The creation of the heavens and earth is indeed greater than the creation of mankind, but most of the people do not know.

Ghafir:57

Sources

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planet

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2008/10/the_sun.html

http://www.universetoday.com/18028/sun-orbit/

http://sunearthday.nasa.gov/2007/locations/ttt_sunlight.php

http://www.kaheel7.com/ar/index.php/2010-02-02-20-06-04/504-2012-10-17-18-07-52

http://kaheel7.com/eng/index.php/astronomu-a-space/482-floating-in-the-space

http://kaheel7.com/eng/index.php/astronomu-a-space/349-cosmic-rivers

http://quran.com/10/6

http://quran.com/7/185

http://quran.com/36/38

http://quran.com/36/40

http://quran.com/40/57