Our closest star is the strangest, most alien world in the solar system.

It's a place we can never hope to visit, but I want to show you that, through space exploration and a few chance discoveries, our generation is getting to know the sun in exquisite new detail.

For us, it's everything, and yet it's just one ordinary star amongst 200 billion starry wonders that make up our galaxy.

This is the remote frontier of the solar system, a dwarf planet known as Sedna.

Seen from out here, 13 billion kilometres away from Earth, the sun is just another star.

Uranus is 10 billion kilometres closer in, but even so, sunrise is barely perceptible.

The sun hangs in the sky 300 times smaller than it appears on Earth.

Further in, we come to Saturn. Its spectacular rings reflect the sun's light onto its dark side.

This planet is bathed, not just in sunshine, but in ring-shine.

230 million kilometres out, we arrive at the first world with a more familiar view of the sun.