Aliens must be out there The sun is over Earth’s horizon as seen from aboard the International Space Station above a point in southwestern Minnesota, May 21, 2013. REUTERS/NASA Written By 12th Feb 2021 The sun is not special. I know that’s a churlish thing to say about everyone’s favourite celestial body, our planet’s blazing engine and eternal clock, giver of light, life and spectacular Instagram backdrops. Awesome as it is, though, the sun is still a pretty ordinary star, one of an estimated 100 billion to 400 billion in the Milky Way galaxy alone. And the Milky Way is itself just one galaxy among hundreds of billions or perhaps trillions in the observable universe.