The Sun is the spectral type G2V yellow star at the center of our solar system. The Earth and many other bodies (including other planets, asteroids, meteoroids, comets and dust) orbit the Sun, which accounts for more than 99% of the solar system's mass. Different latitudes of the Sun rotate at different rates; a point on the equator takes 25 days, while a point at a pole takes 36 days. The resultant torsion upsets the Sun's very strong magnetic field to create an 11-year solar cycle of activity. Heat and light from the Sun have supported almost all life on Earth. Humans use sunlight to grow crops (see photosynthesis) and power solar cells. The Sun is a ball of plasma with a diameter of 1.392 million km (864,950 mi) and a mass of about 2.0×10³⁰ kg, which is somewhat higher than that of an average star. About 74% of its mass is hydrogen, with 25% helium, and the rest made up of trace quantities of heavier elements. The Sun is about 4.6 billion years old, and is about halfway through its main sequence evolution, during which nuclear fusion reactions in its core fuse hydrogen into helium. (continued...)

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From Wikipedia's newest articles:

• ...that Balchug island opposite Moscow Kremlin takes its name from the Tatar word for "marsh"?
• ...that Sanford N. McDonnell, the chairman emeritus of McDonnell Douglas Corporation, is also a past national president of the Boy Scouts of America?
• ...that most knights of the Middle Ages wore chausses as leg protection?
• ...that Tony Saunders was the first player selected in the expansion draft when Major League Baseball added teams in 1997?
• ...that Georgia’s capital Tbilisi functioned as the center of an Islamic emirate under the Arab rule from 736 to 1122?
• ...that historian Doane Robinson conceived of the idea of Mount Rushmore in order to attract greater tourism to South Dakota?

• Cuba and Japan face-off in the finals of the first ever World Baseball Classic in San Diego, California.
• Cyclone Larry (pictured) makes landfall near Innisfail, Queensland, Australia with 250 km/h winds, the strongest storm to hit Queensland in over 70 years.
• Thomas Lubanga, former head of the Union of Congolese Patriots, is the first person arrested by the International Criminal Court, and will be its first court case.
• Six men are in intensive care after taking the immunomodulatory drug TGN1412 in clinical trials in the UK.

2006 Commonwealth Games

• Athletics: World record holder Asafa Powell wins the men's 100m sprint in a time of 10.03 seconds, for Jamaica.

March 20: Vernal equinox (Northern Hemisphere) and Autumnal equinox (Southern Hemisphere) at 18:26 UTC, Norouz (New Year) in Iran, International Earth Day (2006); Independence Day in Tunisia (1956).

• 1602 - The Dutch East India Company was established.
• 1852 - Uncle Tom's Cabin, a novel by Harriet Beecher Stowe (pictured) about slavery in the United States before the Civil War, was first published.
• 1883 - The Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property, one of the first intellectual property treaties, was signed.
• 1987 - The antiretroviral drug AZT became the first antiviral medication approved for use against HIV and AIDS.
• 1995 - The Aum Shinrikyo sect carried out a poison gas attack on the Tokyo subway system, killing 12 people and injuring more than 6,000 with sarin.

Recent days: March 19 – March 18 – March 17