The Sun is the closest star to us. It is the source of life on Earth. Sunlight feeds the whole ecosystem. Trees, plants and fruit trees feed on sunlight, omnivores feed on plants, trees, and fruit trees, and carnivores feed on omnivores. If the sun was to disappear suddenly, we would start feeling extremely cold, plants would stop harnessing energy, and life on Earth would disappear and only the species that live in the deepest, darkest and coldest part of the ocean would live. Harmlessly swimming down at the bottom of the ocean. Human life, and possibly, all intelligent life in the universe would die out.

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The previous example would happen within eight minutes of the sun disappearing. Why eight minutes? That's how long it takes light to reach us from the sun, it's how long it takes for light to travel an astronomical unit, the distance from the sun to Earth.

The sun is the closest star to us. Because we humans are so pompous and so full of ourselves, we called it the sun. Our sun is just an average star, one of many out there in the universe. We humans call our normal, hydrogen-fusing star, the sun and way more exciting neutron stars names such as RX J1856.5-3754.

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We probably do this because of the cultural and religious meaning of the sun to humanity. Since the dawn of civilisation, the sun has captured the attention of religions and cultures around the world. From the Greek and Roman incarnation of Apollo to the Aztec version of Huitzilopochtli, the sun lives on in human mythology. But as our understanding grew over the millennia we stepped out of the habit of making up stories to explain things that we couldn't understand and embraced science and with it, astronomy.

The sun is the heart of our solar system its gravitational field keeps our solar system stable, and within it, Earth.