What if someone told you they owned the Sun and planned to make money from it?
That sounds like something from a comedy movie. But in 2010, a Spanish woman named Ángeles Durán made exactly that claim.
Durán, from Galicia, Spain, went to a local notary and had a document drawn up declaring herself the owner of the Sun. The document described the Sun as a G2-type star at the center of the solar system.
Her reasoning was unusual. She pointed to the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, arguing that the treaty prevents countries from claiming celestial bodies, but does not specifically mention private individuals.
“I did it,” she reportedly said, arguing that someone else could have made the claim—but she simply got there first.
And then she wanted to charge people
Durán wasn’t planning to keep her unusual “property” to herself.
She said she wanted to charge people for using the Sun’s rays and proposed dividing the money between herself, the Spanish government, research and efforts to combat hunger.
The story might have ended there as one of the strangest claims ever reported.
But a few years later, she took the idea even further.
She tried selling pieces of the Sun
In 2013, Durán began offering one-square-metre plots of the Sun on eBay for €1. According to contemporary Spanish reporting, buyers were offered certificates claiming to document their ownership.
eBay eventually removed the listings.
The reason? The platform said she was attempting to sell something intangible that could not be verified or delivered to a buyer.
The bizarre saga later reached a Spanish court after Durán challenged eBay’s actions. However, that did not mean a court had recognized her as the legal owner of the Sun. The court dispute concerned her dealings with eBay, not a judicial declaration that she owned the star.
So, did she really own the Sun?
No – not in any meaningful legal sense.
Durán really did make the claim, have a notarial document prepared, and later attempt to sell supposed pieces of the Sun. But having a notarized document does not establish internationally recognized ownership of a celestial body.
That’s what makes the story so strange: the claim was real, the paperwork was real, and the attempted sales were real but that didn’t make the Sun hers.
