What Controls Climate?…..many things….

….but what do you think is most important?

Can you recognize this x-ray image?

How about this ultraviolet (UV) one?

This one is infrared………………

Using satellites to take pictures using parts of the electromagnetic spectrum besides visible light helps us learn more about everyone’s favorite star…

“Sol”

Our sun is a star…

http://www.teachersdomain.org/resource/ess05.sci.ess.eiu.sunbasics/

Why does the sun look different from the stars we see at night?

What is the sun made of again?What about planets and moons?

One hot “Sol”The sun has many different layers, each of

which is a different temperature. After energy is created through nuclear fusion, at the center of the sun, it slowly comes to the surface, and then goes into space.

http://youtu.be/qmCJMWp_ggk

Far Out

Because Earth’s orbit is an ellipse (or oval) it is actually five million kilometers closer to the sun during January than in July.

The change in Earth’s distance from the sun doesn’t affect temperature on our planet much because we are so far away from the sun.

Far out…Five million kilometers is longer than driving

around the Earth 100 times, but it is still very small compared to our total distance from the sun…

If we could drive to the sun, it would be like driving around the entire Earth almost 40,000 times, which

would take longer than a lifetime (if it was possible..)

Bigger than it looksBut still the little kid on the block in the solar

system..

www.youtube.com/watch?v=BS88G5WBcfQ

What does “Sol” do for us?Heat and light: Energy from

the sun arrives at Earth in many different wavelengths that heat the earth, but the light we see is just visible light.

Gravity: Our solar system has been around for about 4.5 billion years, and it’s the pull of Sol that has been keeping it together all that time, like a magnet

Even Sol needs a little help sometimesIt takes more than just heat to keep our planet warmEarth’s atmosphere (the particles in the air above

Earth) traps some of the heat under it like a blanket.Just like a blanket, this keeps the dark part of Earth that is not facing the sun warm.This “greenhouse effect” is one of the things that makes it possible for life to exist here.

Out of this world?Other planets couldn’t support the type of life we have on

Earth

TemperatureWaterrespiration (breathing)photosynthesis (how plants breathe)solid land

Do you think they could support other types of life? This picture is of the type of bacteria that live in peoples’

intestines. Some scientists think that if there is life on other planets, it would probably be bacterialhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HqFVxWfVtoo