Life -story of the Sun

Sun is in the sky

*Will the sun keep shinning for ever and ever?

The sun is now 4.6 billion years old. Like all new stars it began its life in a cloud of gas and dust. It will shine as a normal star for most of its life. It will probably stay at its present size for another 5000 million years then it will begin to change.

First the center of the sun will get smaller and hotter. The outer layers will be pushed out by this increased heat, so the sun will grow in size. It will become a hundred times bigger than its present sizes; it will become a red giant.

Red giants are stars, a hundred times bigger than sun. They are at the end of their life, cooling down slowly and becoming smaller. The smallest stars are called dwarf stars. Our sun also will change its color from red to white and become a white dwarf. In the end it will become a cold dark body, called a black dwarf, giving off no light or heat. But that will be thousands of millions of years later. For present the sun will continue as it is.

*We all know that we get light and heat from the sun. But do we know what our sun really is?

The sun is a star-a huge ball of hot, glowing gases. It lows so furiously that we cannot look straight it. But it is not actually burning. It is not a ball of fire. It is a ball of gases! All the stars are balls o hot, glowing gases. Our sun is an average star in size and brightness.

Our earth and eight other planets orbit the sun. The sun, the nine planets and their moons make up the solar system. The word solar means of the sun. The solar system also contains thousands of minor planets and countless comets. All these are held in their orbits by the sun's gravity.

Have you seen the sunlight becoming dim or begin cut off for sometime during the day/ this happens during an eclipse.

*Why do eclipses happen?

Eclipses take place when the sun seems to disappear totally or partially? It does mot really disappear. What happens is that the moon passes in front o the sun. Then we are unable to see the sun. Sometimes the moon blocks out the sun completely and for a short time, day becomes dark like night. This is called a total solar eclipse. Sometimes the full moon passes through the earth's shadow. Then we have the eclipse of the moon called the lunar eclipse.

Eclipse must have been very frightening before people knew why they happen. In the east, people believed eclipses were caused by a dragon trying to eat the sun or the moon!

We should never look at the sun directly during an eclipse. It is as harmful to the eyes at these times as when the sun is shinning normally. An eclipse lasts just for a few minutes.