Expert: Tom Whiting - 1/28/2005

Question


The sun surly does not emanate from here.  Take a look at the front and then look to the lowest right and where is that from?  Then to the right of that there is another but from somewhere else.  Where is that one from?  Go to the middle and tell me where that round ball thing is from.  Finally, tell me, what is this whole thing?  

Answer
Hi Danny......
I'm still trying to figure out the question.....
Was there a picture or something, supposed to accompany
your question....or diagram?  If so, I don't think you can send
a picture or diagram on this website.  If  a picture was supposed
to accompany the question, please just E-mail me directly at
bwhiting@velocity.net
and send the picture or diagram.


But to just try to answer your question using just the text......
The sun is just an average star....the sun (and the planets)
formed up (as all stars do) in an interstellar dust cloud,
called the pre-solar nebula, about 5 billion years ago....a
relatively short time, astronomically.
So the sun and the planets are estimated to be about
4.6 billion years old, and the sun has an additional life
span of about another 4 to 5 billion years.  So that is where
the sun came from.... it didn't emanate from the Earth or
anywhere else...it formed up in an interstellar cloud.
Meanwhile, the planets also formed in the dust and gas
that was circling the early "proto-sun"....they were
attempting to gather in (accrete) enough material to
become stars also, but they all failed.....Jupiter came the
closest, and would have been another star (we would now
be living in a double star system if Jupiter had made it
to stardom).....but as luck would have it, no other planet
was able to gather in enough material (and of course, all
this takes millions of years) to becomes stars themselves.
So planets are just "failed" stars...bodies that failed to
accumulate enough matter during their formation, to
become big enough and hot enough to become stars
themselves.

The sun hogged most of the material in the pre-solar nebula
cloud....in fact, of all the matter in our Solar System, the
Sun constitutes 99.86% of all the matter.....Jupiter grabbed
0.1%  and the remaining 0.04% constitutes all the rest
of the Solar System!....including the Earth.
Hope all this helps,
but if you need more help, and have a picture or diagram
to transmit, please feel free to use my E--mail address above.

Clear Skies,
Tom Whiting
Erie PA