The Sun
What is the Sun? How big is it? What is it made of? Where does the Sun get all the energy that it sends to Earth and all of the other planets in our solar system? We know the Sun is a star, but what are stars? Stars are huge balls of glowing gas. Our star the Sun, is a huge ball, 864,000 miles in diameter. It is so large that if it were empty you could put one million Earths in it. The Sun is also very heavy. There are two main gases that make up the Sun: Hydrogen and Helium. Hydrogen is one of the elements in water and Helium is the gas sometimes put into balloons to make them float. About 90% of the atoms in the Sun are hydrogen atoms. The remaining 10% are helium atoms. Without the pull of the Suns strong gravity these gases would escape into space.
