The Sun

The Sun - a collage by Jemimah

A narration by Jemimah

The Sun

The Sun is very hot. It is 100’s of degrees hot. In fact, did you know it is 1000’s of degrees hot?

Did you know that the sun has lots of sunspots? The sunspots are little cool dots, but the more you have, the hotter it gets! The less you have, then the cooler it gets.If you look at the sun you will burn a hole in your retina. That’s why it is very dangerous to look at the sun without special science tools, but you are allowed to quickly flick your head over so that you only get a small glimpse of the sun. If you so look at the sun and you don’t get a hole in your retina, then you most normally get a big splodge in your eye. They can come in all sorts of shapes. You can get them in all sorts of sizes and colours. In reckon that the reason it is coloured is because the sun has all sorts of colours in it, but mummy says that I am wrong.

The sun holds all the colours of the rainbow – indigo, purple and blue, orange, pink and red, yellow and brown, but the sun does not hold the colour black. So where does the colour black come from? Nobody knows entirely, but not from the sun. Like all colours, black is a kind of colour but it is not bouncy – it dissolves, it soaks in and does not bounce into your eye.

People in the old days believed that the sun revolved around the earth. They thought that because God loved them so much that he would give all the planets to them. To me, when they were kids, I think they were spoiled brats!! Anyway, there was a man named Copernicus. He thought of the idea that maybe – just maybe – the earth revolved around the sun! Everyone fought against him, but using special tools, he proved that he was right and they were wrong.There was a man called Galileo Galilei who agreed with Copernicus and though he was very clever. To tell you the truth, I do as well.

Did you know there is something called an eclipse? Well, you probably didn’t. Anyway, there is something called a solar eclipse and it is very interesting because you would have thought the moon was smaller than the sun, wouldn’t you – and, of course, it is, but in the solar eclipse, the sun goes behind the moon and for a minute – just a minute during the day, it is dark black! Now for you that would be very strange, indeed, even for one minute, but guess what? Other people have to deal with it for five minutes. That’s a long time, isn’t it?

There is something called a solar flare. It comes out of the sun. It is at least 10 times the size of the earth and probably 100 times the size of the moon. It is very hot. It is a big bit of the fire that comes out of the sun. You can imagine how big it is, can’t you?

The sun is so hot that Mercury, the nearest planet is the second hottest planet, and Venus the third and Earth the fourth.

Did you know I know the order of the planets? I’ll tell them to you: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto.

Our little poem that we made is:

Many Virtuous Elephants Made Jam Sandwiches Until Nicely Protesting!

P. S. I love the chatty tone she has used for her narration - à la Jeannie Fulbright!