The Sun And Its Connection To Planet Earth

By Haywood Hunter


There are billions of stars in the sky, with the sun being the closest to Earth among them. It lies at the center of the solar system. For every 27 days, the sun rotates once. It was formed about four and a half billion years ago. It is determined that the sun is at middle of its life, meaning that it shall shine for about 5 billion more years.

The surface of the sun is called photosphere. The temperature of the photosphere is 5,778 K. It is, however, much hotter at the core of the sun, being 15.7 million K. The energy is produced via a process known as nuclear fusion. This involves 2 hydrogen nuclei joining to form 1 helium nucleus, releasing energy.

A distance of 149.6 million kilometers separates the sun and the earth. The sun has a diameter of 1.392 million kilometers and an equatorial circumference of 4.379 million kilometers. These values are 109 times higher than the corresponding earth's measurements. Its surface area is 11,990 times that of earth, measuring 6.0877 trillion kilometer squared. Its volume is 1.3 trillion times that of earth.

Energy from the sun, known as solar energy, reaches the earth via radiation. The sun can only absorb a small fraction of solar energy; hence plenty of the radiated energy is reverberated back to space. Life on earth is dependent of the absorbed energy. More of its effects include tides, weather patterns and the earth's water cycle.

Plants make their own food through photosynthesis, a process that is dependent on solar energy. Take note that all living organisms get their food directly or indirectly from plants. In addition, the sun is the cause of energy available in fossils. Examples of such energy sources are petroleum and coal.

Providing unlimited light and heat, the sun is the main source of energy to the earth. Extra applications of solar energy include lighting, generating electricity and in enhancing growth of plants in green houses. Considering all these factors, it is true to say that there can be no life on earth without the sun.




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