The Sun

The Sun

The Sun
Reading Level

	edHelper's suggested reading level:	high interest, readability grades 4 to 6
	Flesch-Kincaid grade level:	4.18

Vocabulary

	challenging words:		burning, nuclear, radiation, surrounding, spectacular, zone, rotate, billion, convection, helium, core, mass, region, fairly, galaxy, poles
	content words:		Milky Way

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The Sun
By Patti Hutchison

¹     The sun. We couldn't live without it. All life on earth depends on the energy that comes from the sun. It controls our climate and weather. How much do you know about this giant ball of energy in the sky?

²     The sun is really a star. It is the closest one to earth. It is about 92 million miles away. The sun is the center of our solar system. All the planets revolve around it.

³     Although it has a diameter of about 1.3 million kilometers, the sun is only a medium star. It is known as a yellow dwarf. The sun is part of the Milky Way galaxy. Scientists believe it is just a bit older than earth, about 4.6 billion years.

⁴     The Sun is made up of several layers. It has a core. Next is the radiation zone. Above that is the convection zone. The "surface" of the sun is called the photosphere. Above the surface are two layers of gas. They are called the chromosphere and the corona.

⁵     There is no real surface on the sun. It is made of gas, much the same way a cloud is made of water vapor. Although a cloud looks solid against the sky, it really isn't. You can't touch it or rest on it. The sun is much the same way. It only looks solid against the sky as we view it from so far away.

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