Take a wild guess: how much energy do you think the sun generates?
Think about it. It definitely generates enough energy to power a world.
Humans depend on the photosynthesis of plants, which converts sunlight into energy. And that’s not all. Without energy from the sun, our atmosphere would behave very differently, and so would our oceans.
Everything that moves on Planet Earth does so because it has energy. And a lot of that energy comes from the sun. It doesn’t even stop there—obviously, the sun has plenty of energy to spare, if the recent influx of solar power means anything.
The sun is incredibly powerful. And it’s powerful enough to keep generating that kind of massive energy supply for billions of years.
Does this image look familiar?
It should—these are soap bubbles.
Okay, now you’re probably going to ask me how soap bubbles have anything to do with the battery of the sun.
Well…you might be surprised to know that soap bubbles actually work as models of stars.
How? Continue reading
Does this look familiar?
It might, or it might not. If it does, you might recognize it as the periodic table of the elements—more often known as simply the “periodic table.” It’s an ingenious way to organize elements that has worked for scientists for quite some time.
To fully appreciate the ingenuity of the periodic table, I’d have to take you through a few chemistry lessons. Never fear, I have every intention of doing so—later. For now, though, I just want to address enough of the world of atoms to talk about stellar spectra.
That just means the spectrums we get from stars, by the way. (Spectra is plural for spectrum.) And that means…well…we’ll talk about it later. Let’s talk about the different types of atoms first.