Physical Science 201 – Dr. Larsen

Why does the sun shine?

(They Might Be Giants)

The sun is mass of incandescent gas, a gigantic nuclear furnace,
where hydrogen is built into helium at a temperature of millions of degrees.

(True at the sun’s core)

The sun is hot, the sun is not a place where we could live.
But here on earth there'd be no life without the light it gives.

(True)

We need its light.
We need its heat.
We need its energy.
Without the sun without a doubt there'd be no you or me.

The sun is mass of incandescent gas, a gigantic nuclear furnace.
Where hydrogen is built into helium at a temperature of millions of degrees.

The sun is hot.
[It is so hot that everything on it is a gas, iron, copper, aluminum, and many others.]

(True; but the vast majority (over 98%) of the material in the sun is either Hydrogen (about 75%) or Helium (about 24%))

The sun is large.
[If the sun were hollow, a million earths could fit inside, and yet the sun is only a Middle-sized star.]

(True)

The sun is far away.
[About 93,000,000 miles away, and thats why it looks so small!]

(True)

But even when its out of sight, the sun shines night and day.

(True)

We need its light.
We need its heat.
We need its energy.
The sunlight comes from our own sun's atomic energy.

[Scientists have found that the sun is a huge atom-smashing machine. The heat and light of the sun are caused by the nuclear reactions of hydrogen, Nitrogen, Carbon, and helium!]

(Not exactly true. The sun doesn’t really “smash” atoms, so much as it smooshes them together in a process called fusion).

The sun is mass of incandescent gas, a gigantic nuclear furnace.
Where hydrogen is built into helium at a temperature of millions of degrees.

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