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The Star You Saw This Morning
4 min · Eve · A story to sit with
Eve
The Star You Saw This Morning
Eve is reading this story.
Eve is ready
We call it the Sun. It looks different from the little night points because it is so much closer. It is still a star: a giant ball of hot, shining gas. The other stars are suns too. They only look small because they are very far away.
If the Sun is a star, what does that make the night?
How sure are we?
We know
The Sun is a star. It shines by nuclear fusion in its core, turning hydrogen into helium.
We know
Other stars are the same kind of object, at much greater distances.
We're looking
We are still learning the fine details of the Sun's interior and magnetic weather.
Try it today
- Stand where you can see a shadow on the ground.
- Notice how sharp it is. That sharp edge is made by a very bright, very distant-looking disk.
- Come back later and see if the shadow has moved. The ground did not spin the shadow. Earth turned.
Never look directly at the Sun, and never through binoculars, a telescope, or a camera. There is no safe stare. Enjoy sunlight as warmth, shadow, and color instead.
Put it in My SkyHow we know the Sun is a star
The Sun's spectrum, the rainbow of its light, split apart, matches the spectra of other stars. Its mass, temperature, and energy output sit on the same family tree. The difference is distance, not kind.
- NASA Solar System Exploration, The Sun
- ESA, The Sun as a star