Many people think of the sun as this big, hot star that makes us sweat, but at the Planetarium show “The Sun” on Feb. 27 in Lark Hall at the Santa Rosa Junior College, people of all ages learned there is more to the sun than its excessive heat.
Travis Job, the presenter of the show, took the audience to a new world. The lights were shut off and effects of stars and the sun were shown right above the viewer’s head as Job talked about the sun.
“We compared it to the other kinds of stars,” Job said. “We talked about features of the sun, things that it does, how it affects the planet.”
Energy from the sun is important to Earth; it heats the surface, the oceans and the atmosphere. Job hopes from the presentation that viewers will learn to appreciate the sun more.
“It’s very prominent,” Job said. “It’s also something that is very taken for granted in a lot of ways. It is a source of energy that is for everything on the planet Earth.”
SRJC student John Veu said, “I really liked the sizing, the Earth compared to the sun.” If you could put the sun and Earth side by side, Earth looks the size of a speck, hardly seen when next to the giant star.
Many children came to view the show. One viewer, Danielle Barnsdale, suggested a kids’ night for upcoming events.
“Where [the show] points out different stars they could see in the sky.” Barnsdale said. “It was cool, I liked seeing the stars.”
The show opened the viewers’ eyes to how important the sun is to our planet.
