High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The solar mass (M ), 1.98892×1030 kg, is a standard way to express mass in astronomy, used to describe the masses of other stars and galaxies. It is equal to the mass of the Sun, about two nonillion kilograms or about 332,950 times the mass of the Earth or 1,048 times the mass of Jupiter. The value of the gravitational constant was derived from 1798 measurements by Henry Cavendish using a torsion balance. The value obtained differed only by about 1% from the modern value. The diurnal parallax of the Sun was accurately measured during the transits of Venus in 1761 and 1769, yielding a value of 9 (compared to the present 1976 value of 8.794148 ). When the value of the diurnal parallax is known, the distance to the Sun can be determined from the geometry of the Earth. The first person to estimate the mass of the Sun was Isaac Newton. In his work Principia, he estimated that the ratio of the mass of the Earth to the Sun was about 1/28,700. Later he determined that this value was based upon a faulty value for the solar parallax, which was used to estimate the distance to the Sun (1 AU).