• Question: y is the sun called that

    Asked by mitchellthepic to Akram, David, Gill, Jack, laurenceharwood on 16 Mar 2012.
    • Photo: Jack Snape

      Jack Snape answered on 16 Mar 2012:

      People used to worship the Sun as a god… this is a really long time ago before Christianity. I think the word ‘Sun’ is the anglo-saxon name for the sun-god. Hope that answers your question 🙂

    • Photo: Akram Alomainy

      Akram Alomainy answered on 16 Mar 2012:

      Sol is the Latin word for “Sun”. The Romans called it Sol, so you can blame them. The Greeks called it Helios. All about the god they worshipped as Jack’s explained below!!

      The Latin name is widely known, but not common in general English language use, although the adjectival form is the related word solar.

    • Photo: Laurence Harwood

      Laurence Harwood answered on 16 Mar 2012:

      The Romans called it “Sol” and the Greeks “Helios” but our “Sun” is actually without a proper name now. All other suns we see in th enight sky and we know of are given names such as Polaris (or Great Bear) and Betelgeuse, but our sun is simply called “Sun”. It does have an officlal symbol though – a circle with a dot in the middle.

    • Photo: Gill Menzies

      Gill Menzies answered on 18 Mar 2012:

      You have your answer from my learned friends above, but did you know that the sun is the perfect size, perfect age, perfect distance, perfect temperature and perfect brightness for life to exist on a planet like Earth. So maybe the sun should be called “perfect”??

Comments