The Sun orSun, as it was generally known, was the homestar of thesolar system, a planetary system inMutter's Spiral. It was also calledSol on many occasions.

It was made up of 74%hydrogen and 24%helium, with trace elements comprising the star's remaining 2%. (AUDIO:Feast of Fear^[+]Loading...["Feast of Fear (audio story)"])

History[[edit] |[edit source]]

TheFirst Doctor was unfamiliar with Sol prior to his departure onGallifrey. However, his granddaughterSusan Foreman learned of the existence of the solar system andEarth in herspatial cartography lessons. (AUDIO:The Beginning^[+]Loading...["The Beginning (audio story)"])

When the Sun was a "young star", ascientist lured theUmbra to himself, having brought them together with his immense guilt. He then used what theTwelfth Doctor guessed was atrans-warp tunnel, using the Sun as a power source, to send the Umbra from the scientist's planet into the Sun, where they survived the heat and "swam" for many years through thechromosphere. Millions of years later, the quadrillionaireRudy Zoom spent ten years planning his expedition to circumnavigate the Sun in thesunship thePollyanna so that Rudy could become the first man on the Sun. After thePollyanna entered the chromosphere, the Umbra attacked the ship and began killing and devouring the "souls" of thehumans on board. With the help ofAlice Dubrovnik'sgraviton inverter, thePolyanna was able to invert thegravity on board thePollyanna "to the right degree" and also invert and "[p]ush[...] away" the heat — which also had mass and gravity — from the exterior of thePollyanna. This caused the Umbra, whom the Doctor had lured to thePollyanna's surface, to freeze to death. (COMIC:The Eye of Torment^[+]Loading...["The Eye of Torment (comic story)"])

The Sun "looks" over a hillside. (WC:The Daleks Chase Walter the Worm^[+]Loading...["The Daleks Chase Walter the Worm (webcast)"])

Stealing a prototypestellar manipulator,the Eleven concocted an ultimately unsuccessful plot to ignite Sol and destroy the solar system in1639. (AUDIO:The Satanic Mill^[+]Loading...["The Satanic Mill (audio story)"])

In the 2010s, Sol released a massivesolar flare that threatened to wipe out all life on Earth which not eventhe Doctor's TARDIS detected at first. However, a massiveforest that grew up over night shielded the planet from danger. (TV:In the Forest of the Night^[+]Loading...["In the Forest of the Night (TV story)"]) In thesummer of2015, a group ofHyperion constructed afusion-web around Sol to drain its energy before the Twelfth Doctor andClara Oswald thwarted their scheme. (COMIC:The Hyperion Empire^[+]Loading...["The Hyperion Empire (comic story)"]) In2016, theTwelfth Doctor hadGrant throw theShoal spaceship into Sol to completely and harmlessly destroy the threat it posed. (TV:The Return of Doctor Mysterio^[+]Loading...["The Return of Doctor Mysterio (TV story)"])

In the26th century, a group of fringeacademics called theHelios Society believed that the sun contained a habitable paradise they dubbedHeliotopia. DrSuleiman Zorn was the leader of the society and wrote a treatise on theHeliopian concept. They drove astarship, theSSSuria Namasca, towards the sun to that end, which theFourth Doctor,Leela andK9 landed on whenthe Doctor's TARDIS needed to repair itself. (AUDIO:Shadow of the Sun^[+]Loading...["Shadow of the Sun (audio story)"])

In2992, the "last scion of the Clan Van Helsing" finally destroyedDracula, who had become theCyberon Controller, by launching him into the Sun. (COMIC:Before the Storm^[+]Loading...["Before the Storm (comic story)"])

For some time around4009,Tent City was located inside Sol'sphotosphere. (PROSE:The Book of the Still^[+]Loading...["The Book of the Still (novel)"])

Human scientists predictedsolar flare activity would sterilise their homeworld of Earth and took measures to prepare for it. To this end, they left Earth in ships, amongst themStarship UK. (TV:The Beast Below^[+]Loading...["The Beast Below (TV story)"])Space StationNerva may have gone into service as a refuge for humans and other life incryogenic suspension. (TV:The Ark in Space^[+]Loading...["The Ark in Space (TV story)"])

In the 57thsegment of Time the last humans left on Earth evacuated theplanet because of the increasing danger that it would fall into the Sun. They fled to planets such asRefusis II (TV:The Ark^[+]Loading...["The Ark (TV story)"]) andFrontios. (TV:Frontios^[+]Loading...["Frontios (TV story)"]) Some accounts indicate the Sun destroyed the planet in10,000,000 (PROSE:The Book of the War^[+]Loading...["The Book of the War (novel)"],Of the City of the Saved...^[+]Loading...["Of the City of the Saved... (novel)"]) or12,000,000, (PROSE:The Brakespeare Voyage^[+]Loading...["The Brakespeare Voyage (novel)"]) but others indicate the now uninhabited Earth was preserved by theNational Trust and over the billions of years following was restored to a "classic Earth" before it was finally destroyed by the expanding sun (TV:The End of the World^[+]Loading...["The End of the World (TV story)"]) in the year5,000,000,000. (TV:New Earth^[+]Loading...["New Earth (TV story)"]) According to yet another account, at a point when humans still inhabited the Earth, the Sun slowly imploded in a way which was visible from, and did not immediately destroy, the planet; this heralded "the end of the world". (PROSE:Assessment Day^[+]Loading...["Assessment Day (short story)"])

Someposthumans modified themselves intohomo solarians and lived in the expanding Sun before it was eventually swallowed byGrandfather's Maw in60,000,000,000. (PROSE:The Brakespeare Voyage^[+]Loading...["The Brakespeare Voyage (novel)"])

Cultural and religious significance[[edit] |[edit source]]

In100,000 BC,a tribe of early humans worshipped Sol asOrb. (TV:An Unearthly Child^[+]Loading...["An Unearthly Child (TV story)"])

TheGreeks worshippedHelius, anOlympian, as the god of the sun. (COMIC:The Life Bringer!^[+]Loading...["The Life Bringer! (comic story)"])

InMexico circa the15th century, the timing of asolar eclipse had great religious significance. (TV:The Aztecs^[+]Loading...["The Aztecs (TV story)"])

By the time humanity had become aspace-faring civilisation, theApollonians worshipped the Sun as a god. According toSandy Tanaka, the Apollonians had aprophecy, in which "[i]f the body of the Sun [were] ever violated, [...] 'theEye of Torment' [would] open. It [would] look down on humanity and condemn [them]." (COMIC:The Eye of Torment^[+]Loading...["The Eye of Torment (comic story)"])

Other realities[[edit] |[edit source]]

Alternate timelines[[edit] |[edit source]]

In analternate timeline where the creation ofGENIEs brought theEarth to the brink of destruction, people used the sun to power the earliest created GENIE they could find so that it could travel back in time to the day of its creation. The sheer power destroyed the GENIE which could not withstand being powered by the sun itself. As the people planned, the lab and the research contained within was destroyed in the process, preventing widespread use of GENIEs and saving the Earth. (PROSE:The Stone Rose^[+]Loading...["The Stone Rose (novel)"])

In thepost-Pandorica timeline, the sun was destroyed along with every otherstar in theuniverse, due toTotal Event Collapse, brought on by theexplosion ofthe Doctor's TARDIS. The sun was replaced with the exploding TARDIS, which heated and lit the Earth for almost 2000 years, at theeye of the storm. (TV:The Big Bang^[+]Loading...["The Big Bang (TV story)"])

Parallel universes[[edit] |[edit source]]

In thefirstparallel universe thatRose Tyler visited while trying to find her way back toN-Space, Sol fell victim to thereality bomb, causing its version of Earth to freeze over. (AUDIO:The Endless Night^[+]Loading...["The Endless Night (audio story)"]) Inthe second, Earth's orbit had been shifted so that it was closer to Sol, triggering a constantrain, a situation suspected to have been caused by alien powers. (AUDIO:The Flood^[+]Loading...["The Flood (RTDC audio story)"])

Behind the scenes[[edit] |[edit source]]

• Sol is noted onThe Explored Galaxystar chart which appears inInvasion of the Bane^[+]Loading...["Invasion of the Bane (TV story)"], though the names are not legible in the episode itself.