Community Magazine March 2019

adar I - adar II 5779 march 2019 93 Efraim Harari The Jewish World of Wonders Productions can be contacted at: JWorldofWonders@hotmail.com Peleh The Boy Wonder Is Presented by: IF YOU HAVE a QUESTION for PELEH the BOY WONDER, send it to: Ask@Communitym.com The Sun’s Sheath The Brightness of the Sun The midrash ( Bereishit Rabbah 6:6) states that “there is a sheath around the sun’s orb,” and explains this to be the meaning of the verse: He has set up a tent for the sun ( Tehillim 19:5). The Sages refer to the sun’s sheath in several places (see Bava Metzia 86b, Malachi 3:19, and Bereishit Rabbah 26:6), always with the implication that were it not for its existence, life on Earth would suffer terribly and perhaps even perish. Today scientists realize that just as the Earth has a surrounding atmosphere, which both provides oxygen for life and protects us from the dangerous cosmic rays (high-energy particles that bombard the planet), so, too, the sun has a sheath that protects the inhabitants on Earth from the sun’s heat and dangerous rays. The Sages, however, knew of this sheath's existence, as well as the protective role it plays, from its source in the Torah. TORAHTALK The sun, which is a star, is a sphere of luminous gas, consisting primarily of hydrogen (about 75%) and helium (about 25%). What makes the sun so bright is its power source: through a process known as nuclear fusion, an abundance of energy is produced for the sun. At the center of the sun, the force of gravity squeezes hydrogen atoms with huge amounts of pressure. Under ordinary conditions, the positive electric charges in hydrogen atoms make the atoms repel each other strongly, but the sun’s gravity is so great that the atoms fuse together instead, thereby forming deuterium and helium atoms and releasing vast quantities of energy. The energy released by fusion is about 10 million times greater than combustion (the reaction that causes coal and gasoline to burn). This energy heats the sun’s interior to temperatures of 27 million degrees Fahrenheit. The fusion reaction, along with the sun’s enormous size, allows the sun to continue to shine brightly on a daily basis. Fast Fact The sun orbits our Milky Way galaxy at a speed of 137 miles per second! Any Minute Now… Light from the sun reaches Earth in around 8.3 minutes. Calculated Cheshbon Inside the sun, 600 million tons of hydrogen are converted into helium every second, producing enough energy to power 4 trillion, trillion 100-watt light bulbs!