(intro)

Pop quiz: What's the closest star to earth? It's called Sol. Never heard of it, you say?

Sure you have. Sol is the sun.

Ancient Romans, who once worshipped the sun, called it Sol, and it's become the kind of official scientific name for the sun. It's where the term "solar system" comes from.

Sol, or the sun, is the star at the center of our 8-planet solar system that provides us with energy. Without the sun, earth would be a dark, frozen world with no life.

But how does the sun's energy get to us?

Well first, let's talk about what the sun is. It's a 5 billion year old big ball of super hot gas. The hottest part of the sun is its core, or center, which is about 15 million degrees Celsius.

Whoa.

Its surface is not quite as hot, but it's still almost 5,600 degrees Celsius, which is pretty toasty if you ask me.

And as for its size, the sun is so huge, you could line up over a hundred earths along the face of it, and more than a million earths could fit inside it.

But the sun's size isn't what makes it seem so big and bright to us on earth. It's because it's so close to us that it seems way, way, way, way bigger and brighter than other stars.

So, you know that the sun is hot. And bright. And that heat and light are both kinds of energy that we get from the sun.

Let's take a look at a model to see how the sun's energy gets from good old Sol to our planet.

Here's the sun. Energy is created in its super hot, 15 million degree core. That energy then travels outward from the core to the surface of the sun. But this journey from the center of the sun to its surface can take over 100 thousand years to complete.

But once the energy deep inside the sun finally gets to the surface, it travels as light and heat all the way to earth. In fact, it only takes about 8 minutes for light to travel approximately 150 million km through space to Earth over here. That's not such a long time.

So to sum up, energy is created in the sun's core. It travels very slowly to the sun's surface, before it take a super speedy trip to earth in the form of light and heat. And you and I can can see and feel that energy as sunlight.

Without the heat and light we get from the sun, earth would be just a frozen ball floating around in space. Which would be a total bummer.

So thanks Sol. You're a real star.

(outro)