What would happen if you fell into the Sun? Fall into the Sun

Every bit of daylight you have ever seen started in the Sun's core. Fall through a million-degree sky and a boiling surface to where that light is made.

For this trip you are indestructible. Nothing can hurt you. As you fall, we will tell you what a real body would be going through.

Scroll to fall

6,100,000 km above the surface

Where Parker flew

On Christmas Eve 2024, NASA's Parker Solar Probe flew past here, 6.1 million km from the Sun's surface, at about 690,000 km/h. Nothing humans have built has ever moved faster.

You're already inside the corona, the Sun's outer atmosphere. It's over a million degrees, and nobody fully knows why it's so much hotter than the surface below.

A real body: Over a million degrees, but the gas is so thin you'd barely feel it. It's the sunlight that burns: Parker's heat shield faces about 1,400 °C.

2,000 km above the surface

The red layer

Just above the surface is the chromosphere, a thin red layer. From Earth you only see it as a pink rim during a total eclipse.

It bristles with spicules: jets of gas shooting up thousands of kilometres, each lasting just a few minutes.

A real body: Around 10,000 °C, and strangely it gets hotter the higher you go, away from the surface.

0 km down

The surface that isn't

This is the photosphere, where the Sun's light finally escapes into space. It isn't solid: it's just where the gas turns from foggy to clear.

It seethes with granules, each about the size of France, that rise and sink in minutes. Light leaving here now will reach Earth in about eight minutes.

A real body: About 5,500 °C, in a tenth of Earth's air pressure. In every direction, a boiling floor of light.

100,000 km down

The boiling layer

For its outer 200,000 km, the Sun churns like a pot on the stove. Hot gas rises, cools at the surface and sinks again, in currents bigger than Earth.

That churning twists the Sun's magnetic field, which pokes through the surface as sunspots and snaps in solar flares.

A real body: Around a million degrees and climbing. You're being carried up and down in rivers of plasma.

200,000 km down

Where the boiling stops

Here the churning ends, and the gas below turns smooth and still.

Along this thin boundary the two layers spin at different speeds. It may be where the Sun makes its magnetic field, driving its 11-year cycle of sunspots.

A real body: About two million degrees and 50 million times Earth's air pressure.

400,000 km down

Light's long journey

The gas here is too dense to churn, so energy crawls outward as light. Each bit of light is swallowed and given off again countless times, in random directions.

Light leaving the Sun today may have started this zig-zag journey more than 100,000 years ago.

A real body: Millions of degrees, in gas squeezed as dense as water. Light streams past you in every direction.

695,700 km down

Where sunlight is made

You've reached the core. Every second, it fuses about 600 million tonnes of hydrogen into helium.

In that same second, about 4 million tonnes simply vanish, turned into pure energy. That is the light and warmth of the whole solar system.

Tiny particles called neutrinos fly straight out from here. Billions of them pass harmlessly through your fingertip every second.

A real body: 15 million °C and 265 billion times Earth's air pressure. The gas is squeezed more than ten times denser than lead.

Nearly 700,000 kilometres, through boiling plasma and ancient light, to the heart of our star. You made it.

Back to the Sun The whole solar system

What would happen if you fell into the Sun?

A real body would turn to vapour long before arriving. Even Parker Solar Probe, 6 million km out, needs a heat shield facing about 1,400 °C.

There's no solid surface: the part we see glows at about 5,500 °C and boils like a pot on the stove.

Below it, light takes over 100,000 years to work its way out. At the core it's 15 million °C, where hydrogen fuses into helium and makes all of the Sun's light.

How close can anything get to the Sun?

NASA's Parker Solar Probe holds the record. On 24 December 2024 it passed 6.1 million km from the surface at about 690,000 km/h, the fastest any human-made object has gone.

What is inside the Sun?

From the outside in: the corona, the thin red chromosphere, the visible surface (photosphere), a churning convection zone, a calm radiative zone where light crawls outward, and the core where fusion happens.

How hot is the core of the Sun?

About 15 million °C, at 265 billion times Earth's air pressure. The gas there is squeezed more than ten times denser than lead.

How long does sunlight take to get out of the Sun?

Light from the core bounces around for more than 100,000 years before reaching the surface. From there it reaches Earth in about eight minutes.