The Planet’s Source of Life Can Also Devastate Modern Society
The sun is a nuclear furnace 93 million miles from Earth and the planet’s primary source of life. It is also the most destructive force Earth faces. (Image: NASA-ecology.com)
The greatest threat to Earth sits right at the heart of our solar system. The warm, life-giving nuclear factory we call the sun is essential to all life as we know it, yet it is millions of times more violent and destructive than any other force our planet faces.
This is the same sun that eradicated the atmosphere on Mars some four billion years ago when that planet lost its magnetic field (remember this!). Earth sits much closer to the sun than Mars does and is thus more intensely subjected to the sun’s formidable power. Not only does the sun generate temperatures on its surface upwards of more than 10,000° F (5,538° C), but its core temperature is over 27 million degrees Fahrenheit (15 million degrees Celsius)!
It is at the center of the sun where its fuel, hydrogen, fuses to create helium in a nuclear fusion process (like the plutonium atomic bomb that was used at the end of World War II) and is the ultimate source of its fierce energy in the form of light, heat and other radiation. This process is why life thrives on our planet… but it is also why life is impossible on others and constantly poses dangers to Earth itself.
