This Week's Topic of Interest: the Sun

The sun is an element on which life depends. What is the sun? The sun is a bright sphere of burning gas. An inferno with characteristics that will let life live on this planet, Earth. The sun is a star, which also, like the sun, is a bright sphere of burning gas. Several things happen on the sun that we do not know much about. Flares flare up, reaching to its highest, and sunspots, the coolest spots on the sun, appear.

The sun, as all other stars are, is very large in size, and since it is the closest star in our galaxy, it is the brightest. We only see the sun during the day, although it shines in the night too. It gives off radiation of both heat and light. The heat gies our planet enough warmth to live, and the light enables us to see all around us.

Our sun is a middle-aged star, meaning it still has much more time to live. Black holes (last report) form from stars when they reach the eldest part of their life. They become a supernova and explode. Sometimes the explosion leaves a dark hole where it once was, with a gravitational pull that nothing can escape. When our sun becomes a supernova, it will exceed its present size, swallowing Mercury (Report 2), Venus (Report 3), Earth (Report 4) and Mars (Report 5). As its finish, if it were massive enough, it would explode to a black hole and pull all the other planets into its grasp, but it is not really big enough to do that.

Not to worry, though, for this will not happen for 4 to 5 billion years from now.

This is the end of Report 1: The Last Frontier: The Sun.

If you have any questions, please feel free to Y-mail me. Either go to Whyville Faces, click on "E", and find Etrnl *, or, if I am already in your address book, Y-mail me from there.

Thanks,
Etrnl *