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The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is a nearly perfect sphere of hot plasma, heated to incandescence by nuclear fusion reactions in its core, radiating the energy mainly as light and infrared radiation. It is by far the most important source of energy for life on Earth. Its diameter is about 1.39 million kilometres (864,000 miles), or 109 times that of Earth, and its mass is about 330,000 times that of Earth. It accounts for about 99.86% of the total mass of the Solar System.
Roughly three quarters of the Sun's mass consists of hydrogen (~73%); the rest is mostly helium (~25%), with much smaller quantities of heavier elements, including oxygen, carbon, neon, and iron.The Sun is a G-type main-sequence star (G2V) based on its spectral class. As such, it is informally and not completely accurately referred to as a yellow dwarf (its light is closer to white than yellow). It formed approximately 4.6 billion years ago from the gravitational collapse of matter within a region of a large molecular cloud. Most of this matter gathered in the center, whereas the rest flattened into an orbiting disk that became the Solar System. The central mass became so hot and dense that it eventually initiated nuclear fusion in its core. It is thought that almost all stars form by this process.
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Erie (; EER-ee) is a city on the south shore of Lake Erie and the county seat of Erie County, Pennsylvania, United States.
The city was named for the Native American Erie people who lived in the area until the mid-17th century. Erie is the fourth-largest city in Pennsylvania, and the largest city in Northwestern Pennsylvania, with a population of 101,786 at the 2010 census. The estimated population in 2019 had decreased to 95,508. The Erie metropolitan area, equivalent to all of Erie County, consists of 276,207 residents. The Erie-Meadville combined statistical area had a population of 369,331, as of the 2010 Census.
Erie is halfway between the cities of Buffalo, New York, and Cleveland, Ohio, and due north of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.