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As stars go, the sun is not particularly special. It’s just one of about 100 billion in our galaxy alone, and it doesn’t sit on any extremes of size, temperature, age or any other factors. But to us, it’s everything. It’s what powers the Earth, what provides us with the energy that drives not only the planets’s many systems but life itself. Click through the slideshow above to learn more about our nearest star. (None of the pictures are artists’ renderings — they’re all images taken with telescopes from Earth or various spacecraft studying the sun.)

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