A big ball of gas.
Did you see it this morning? It was there for a brief moment lighting up our lives and enabling the phase change of some of the lying water in the puddles left by the overnight deluge.
Our nearest star, the Sun is truly a remarkable thing. It was formed approximately 4.57 billion years ago as gravity pulled together mostly hydrogen and helium molecules together probably triggered by a shock wave from the supernova of another star.
The Sun (http://static.ddmcdn.com/gif/sun-update-1.jpg)
The Sun is just under 150,000,000 km from the Earth. The light that is produced by it takes just over 8 minutes to reach us.
It has a volume equivalent to 1.3 million Earths and has a mass of 333,000 times the Earth. At its core the temperature is 15 million Celsius although at its surface the temperature ranges from 5500 to 6000 Celsius. The Sun is made of plasma and it's energy is released due to the fusion of hydrogen into helium.
It has been estimated that the Sun has another 5 billion years before it uses up its hydrogen fuel source. After this it will start secondary fusion and swell. It will become a red giant. Research suggests that the Sun will engulf the Earth at this stage.
This summer it is hard to imagine the Sun is actually out there releasing all that heat and light.
Interestingly scientists believe that the Sun is getting slightly warmer and that in one billion years the Sun will be hot enough to cause all water on the Earth to evaporate.
Now that would be a Summer.
Our nearest star, the Sun is truly a remarkable thing. It was formed approximately 4.57 billion years ago as gravity pulled together mostly hydrogen and helium molecules together probably triggered by a shock wave from the supernova of another star.
The Sun (http://static.ddmcdn.com/gif/sun-update-1.jpg)
The Sun is just under 150,000,000 km from the Earth. The light that is produced by it takes just over 8 minutes to reach us.
It has a volume equivalent to 1.3 million Earths and has a mass of 333,000 times the Earth. At its core the temperature is 15 million Celsius although at its surface the temperature ranges from 5500 to 6000 Celsius. The Sun is made of plasma and it's energy is released due to the fusion of hydrogen into helium.
It has been estimated that the Sun has another 5 billion years before it uses up its hydrogen fuel source. After this it will start secondary fusion and swell. It will become a red giant. Research suggests that the Sun will engulf the Earth at this stage.
This summer it is hard to imagine the Sun is actually out there releasing all that heat and light.
Interestingly scientists believe that the Sun is getting slightly warmer and that in one billion years the Sun will be hot enough to cause all water on the Earth to evaporate.
Now that would be a Summer.
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