ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Sun's curious identity

The sun is like a giant ball of gas that floats in space and gives us light and warmth. We call the sun a "star," which means it's just like all the other little lights we see in the sky at night, but much much bigger and closer to us.

Scientists have been studying the sun for a long time, and they have discovered some really interesting things about it. One thing they found out is that the sun is made up of mostly hydrogen gas. Hydrogen is the most basic building block of everything in the universe, so it makes sense that it would be a big part of the sun.

Another thing scientists have discovered is that the sun is actually kind of a teenager. It's about halfway through its life, which means it's already been around for a really long time - almost five billion years! But it still has a long way to go before it dies.

The sun is also really really hot - so hot that we can't even imagine it. Scientists say that the temperature in the sun's center is about 27 million degrees Fahrenheit! That's like a thousand times hotter than the hottest oven you've ever seen. But don't worry - the sun is so far away from us that we don't feel its heat directly.

Finally, the sun is really important to us here on Earth. It gives us light during the day so we can see everything around us, and it warms up the air and the ground so that plants can grow and we can live comfortably. Without the sun, life on Earth wouldn't be possible.