If you think you know how the sun moves around the center of the galaxy, think again!

1. The Sun
The True Motion
of the Sun
in light of the Quran
and Science
By Dr. Hussein Mhanna

2. {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

3. 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.

4. 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

5. 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.

6. Planets of the Solar System

7. Terrestial Planets

8. The Gas giants

9. 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.)

10. Sun as seen from outer space

11. Sun as seen from Earth
Sunrise
Sunset

12. 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

14. You think our Sun is
BIG?!

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

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

17. The Sun compared to the largest
discovered star VY Canis Majoris
VY Canis Majoris Radius
Estimates 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!

18. 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

19. Temperature of the Sun
 Center: ≈ 15,700,000 °C (28,260,000 F)
 Surface: ≈ 5505 °C (10,000 F)

20. 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

21. Photospheric composition
 Hydrogen 73.46%
 Helium 24.85%
 Oxygen 0.77%
 Carbon 0.29%
 Iron 0.16%
 Neon 0.12%
 Nitrogen 0.09%
 Silicon 0.07%
 Magnesium 0.05%
 Sulfur 0.04%

22. The structure of the Sun

23. 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.

24. 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.

25. 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.

26. 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

27. 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.

28.  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.

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

30. How does the Quran
describe the motion
of the Sun?

31.  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

32. 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…

33. “…the sun runs” (Yasin:38)
The “running” of the Sun resembles that of a horse

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

35. “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…

36. Star Streaming

37. 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?!

38.  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

39. 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!

40. 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!

41. “They all float” (Yasin:40)
“Floating” of the a ship compared to “floating” of the Sun

42. “They all float” (Yasin:40)
An image from NASA assures the existence of numerous
rivers of stars in our galaxy.

43. 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

44. 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