Is the Sun shrinking in size by 200 miles per year?
Observations have shown that in fact the sun is not shrinking. In 5 billion years from now just as it uses up its remaining hydrogen it will still be 99.9% as big as it is now. In 1987, several astronomers from Paris Observatory made an announcement regarding the size of the Sun that astonished their colleagues (Kippenhahn, R., 1994, pg. 163). They claimed that solar eclipse data from 1666 to 1719 showed that the Sun was 2000 kilometers larger than it is today. This amounts to a 0.3 percent reduction; and the time period, which roughly corresponds to the Maunder Minimum, seemed to be more than coincidental. However, this data was found to contain an error regarding the 1715 solar eclipse path of totality. Consequently, the Sun was the same size in 1716 as it is today, and astronomers were reassured. Reference R. Kippenhahn, Discovering the Secrets of the Sun, Wiley Press, 1994.
