N Izett

Regarding the recent two enlightening letters in the Beacon, Friday, December 13. regarding the Awatapu Cell Tower; the first by Dave Seay.

I must congratulate Jack Karetai-Barrett in particular and Whakatāne High School for producing such a well-educated and level-headed young man, at a time when juvenile crime and ram-raids are so rife.

This prompted me to put the following details together on our sun to enlighten all and quell any further misinformation.

Our sun has long been classed as a “main sequence star” and just like Goldilocks, it is not too small and not too big, but just right.

And our planet Earth, of all the other planets is in the “Goldilocks zone”, too. Not too close and not too far from the sun, but the right distance for water to condense; the most critical element for the sustenance of all the life on our planet that we humans are just one part of.

Also, being a main sequence star and just one of the two-to-four billion stars in our Milky Way galaxy, means it is about four billion years old in its 10 to 11-billion-year life span.

The diameter of the sun is 1.4 million kilometres compared to our puny little planet at 12,735km.  On a scale with the sun at 305mm, Earth is just under 2.8mm, `109 times smaller.

Our very existence is due to this nuclear reactor in the sky, 150.196.428 million kilometres from the earth’s slightly eccentric orbit, which is closest in early January each year.

Its gravitational crush at 27 times the Earth, (think of 27 people your own weight on your shoulders) fuses 650 million tonnes of hydrogen in its core every second, releasing 400 trillion watts of energy as heat and light, every tick of the clock.

That’s an enormous amount of power that makes life on Earth possible, but we only receive a tiny fraction of this energy as it is radiated out in all directions into space from the sun, lucky for us. If it were possible to put a gigantic reflector behind the sun to focus all that energy on the earth, our entire planet would be vaporised in just a few seconds.  

We are getting a practical example of this energy now when the glaring heat on the fine days makes it is uncomfortable to be out in the direct sunlight, which overheats your home, car, and the ground you walk on, including the sand above the high-tide line on the beach that burns your feet by midday, all the while evaporating millions of tonnes of water from the land, oceans, lakes, and rivers to condense and fall once again as the water. Such a vital process for all life. All this from 150 million kilometres away.