The Sun, The Moon, and The Stars

The sun is the center of the solar system.  The solar system is the official name of the sun’s family which includes nine planets, many moons, and stars.

The Sun

The Sun is the center of the solar system.  Its gravity or magnetic pulls keeps the planets in their proper orbit.

Like the planets, the sun spins on its axis.  It spins fastest at its equator and slowest at its poles.

The sun is a ball of hot, glowing gases. As such it is a source of energy.  It gives us heat and light.  The plant needs the sun’s energy in photosynthesis or food-making process.  Without the sun, life on earth will not be possible.

The sun has different parts.  The three major interior zones are the – core is the innermost part of the Sun where energy is generated by nuclear reactions, the radiative zone – this part of the Sun is hot and dense enough that energy from the core can radiate outward. , and the convection zone – in which convection currents circulate the Sun’s energy to the surface. The flare, sunspots and photosphere, chromosphere, and the prominence are all clipped from actual SOHO images of the Sun.  Sunspots are dark areas that sometimes appear on the surface of the sun.  The glowing gases that shoot into space are called prominences.

During a total solar eclipse, some prominences appear along the margin or edge of the sun’s face.

Astronomers are people who study the sun, moon, stars, and other celestial bodies.  They use special telescopes to study the sun very closely.  Next to the earth’s moon, the sun is said to be the nearest neighbor of the earth.

This huge device called coronagraph, is found at the U.S.  Air Force, Sacramento Peak in New Mexico. This is an example of a telescope which uses sensitive plates and films.  Here, cameras take pictures of the corona and solar prominences.

The world’s largest solar telescope is at Kitt Peak, Arizona.  The slanted part of the telescope points the instrument to the North Star.

The Stars

The stars and the moons are lights we see in the sky at night.

Stars are big balls of fire.  They are very hot.  They give off heat and light like the sun.  The sun is a star but it appears different because it is nearer the earth compared to other stars.

Some stars twinkle more brightly than others because they are nearer the earth.

The light that is produced by stars has to travel many billion kilometers.  When the starlight reaches the earth’s atmosphere, it bends as it passes through the atmosphere’s different layers.  This is the reason why stars seem to twinkle.

This is a nebula.  The word nebula, which means cloud, is the name used for a glowing cloud of gas and dust from an exploding star, or a large group of stars so far from the earth that they look fuzzy.

Radio telescopes are used to study the characteristics of stars.  This telescope sweeps wide section of the sky which is invisible to the Northern Hemisphere astronomers.

Stars differ in colors

Stars have different colors because they have different temperatures.  Blue stars are the hottest, and white ones come next.  Yellow ones are cooler and the red stars are the coolest.

Sirius, a star in the Canis Major or great dog constellation, is the brightest appearing star.

The MOON and the EARTH

Many astronomers once thought that the moon came from the earth.  Some even said that the Pacific Ocean covered the hole that the moon left on earth.  But the Apollo moon landings corrected all this.  The moon is different from the earth.  The moon is about the same age as the earth 4,600,000,000 years.  So it probably formed as a separate body like the earth and other planets, only to be pulled later on by the earth’s gravity.  This lone satellite of the earth is about 400,000 kilometers away from the earth.

The moon is seen from the earth as a bright, round ball.  It is the earth’s nearest neighbor and satellite.

A satellite is a planet that is kept in the right place by the gravity or pull of another planet.

The moon has neither water nor air.  Therefore, plant or animal life is not possible on the moon.

There are high and low places on the lunar or moon’s surface.  The low points are called craters which have been caused by the meteors that had heavily struck the moon’s surface.

The moon revolves once around the earth in almost 28 days.  The moon has no light of its own.  Like a mirror, it sends to earth the sunlight that falls on its surface.

The historic first landing on the moon took place on July 20, 1969.  Three astronauts aboard Apollo 11 made a trip to the moon.  They  were Neil Armstrong, Edwin Aldrin, and Michael Collins.

Tags: different colors of the star, different stars, interior parts of the sun, moon, parts of the sun, satellite, stars, stars color, sun, sun parts, the moon, the stars, the sun

Category: Earth Science