1 Answer

Now we know the sizes of the Sun and Earth, here's a tricky question. How many Earths could you fit inside the Sun? The ratio of the Sun's radius to the Earth's radius is 1,392,000/12756 = 109.1 This means the ratio of their volumes is 109.1 x 109.1 x 109.1, which is about 1,300,000,and that means that 1,300,000 Earths should fit inside the Sun. But hang on a minute.....

If all the Earths stayed as solid balls, you could probably only fit about
960,000 into a ball the size of the Sun, because of all the wasted space in between.

The question of 'exactly how many small balls of a given size can you fit into a larger ball' is a very difficult mathematical problem and has been puzzled over for a long time.

On the other hand if you could melt the Earth into a liquid and pour it into an empty sphere the size of the Sun, then you really could fit in the equivalent of about 1,300,000 Earths, as we calculated before.