> The Childrens Encyclopedia, страница 1 > The wonderful thought that so much came from so little
The wonderful thought that so much came from so little
But at a certain point the heat leaks away faster than it is formed, and the sun cools, and as it cools down heavier elements are formed—the gases become partly fluid and partly solid.
We can see in space plenty of suns which have reached this stage, and- the spectroscope shows that they contain numerous elements, including iron and other metals. In the cloudy stage astronomers call the sun a giant sun, and in the more condensed stage they call it a dwarf sun; and ’ finally the dwarf sun cools dowm entirely and becomes a dead, dark sun.
That is a very brief sketch of how suns are made. But sometimes, while suns are contracting, their surface breaks up and the fragments become planets revolving round it. Something of that sort happened to our Sun; and the fragments grew into the planets, and one of the planets is our Earth.
It is surely wonderful to think that the Earth was made out of the invisible ether, of space, and that at one time all its rocks; and seas and animals and plants were nothing but hydrogen and helium gas! It is surely wonderful to think that a Great Powder could bring so much out of so little! And one of the most wonderful things in the making of the Earth was the final steps that made Life possible.