14 FUN FACTS ABOUT
THE SUN
By Jeannie Meekins
A LearningIsland.com
15 - Minute Book
Editor: Jennifer Robinson
Title page pictures by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
Smashwords Edition
Text (c) Copyright 2011 Jeannie Meekins. All rights reserved.
Published by LearningIsland.com. All rights reserved.
This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, please purchase your own copy from any of several online e-book stores. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
14 Fun Facts About the Sun / Jeannie Meekins
Summary: A brief look at some fun facts about the sun.
1. Sun. Juvenile Literature. 2. Space. Juvenile Literature.
Words: 2045
Reading Level: 6.9
Ages 9 and up.
Our sun is an average star in our galaxy. It is a sphere of burning gas that provides light and heat. It makes our plants grow and allows them to turn carbon dioxide into breathable oxygen.
If our sun were to shine a little less or a little more brightly, life as we knew it would not exist. A drop of less than 2% of the sun’s energy output would turn Earth into an ice-covered planet.
This book explores some other facts that make our sun special.
Fact 1: The sun is about 4.6 billion years old
Stars are being made all the time. Our sun is a star, like all the other stars you see in the sky at night time.
Our sun started its life as gas and dust. Everything in the universe has gravitational attraction. This is what enables even microscopic specks in the coldest regions of space to join together.
Over time, enough material has gathered to be able to contract under the forces of its gravity. This increases pressure and temperature and is enough to start a reaction in the core. The material ignites, and a star is born.
In the case of our sun, this happened about 4.6 billion years ago.
Fact 2: The sun contains about 99.9% of the mass of our solar system.
Our sun is about 300,000 times as massive as Earth.
Our solar system contains the planets and planetoids, moons, comets (of ice, gas and dust), asteroids, meteors (of iron, stone and frozen gas), rocks, ice, gas and dust. There are also all the subatomic particles such as protons and electrons that make up the solar wind.