Exploring a really hot topic

Marisa O’Neil

Our sun is so hot ... .

All together now: “How hot is it?”

It’s so hot, it will engulf the Earth and burn itself out into a

tiny white dwarf star. But not for a few billion years, third-grade

students in Phil Schinhofen’s science class at Kaiser Elementary

School learned Monday.

“How old are you, Tyler?” Schinhofen asked, singling out Tyler

Ingram.

“Nine,” Tyler replied.

“Guess how old the sun is.” Schinhofen said.

Tyler conservatively wagered 900 years old. Other students guessed

anywhere from a few thousand to Chris Selby’s estimate of 1 billion

years old -- only about 4 billion short.

To illustrate just how big 5 billion is, Schinhofen told Chris to

start counting.

“If Chris kept counting and didn’t stop to eat, didn’t stop to

sleep, didn’t stop to play, didn’t stop for anything,” he said as

Chris continued to count, “he would be 170 years old by the time he

got to 5 billion.”

The students gasped in awe.

But the sun is only just hitting its midlife crisis.

In another couple of billion years, he said, it will begin

expanding -- gobbling up Mercury, Venus, even Earth.

The students gasped in horror.

“Funny how things don’t last forever,” he said. “But don’t go home

and tell your parents how mean Mr. Schinhofen told you we’re all

going to die. It won’t happen for a few billion years.”

Secure in the knowledge that a pesky supernova wouldn’t spoil

recess, they went on with the lesson.

Our sun is so big, he told them, that 1.3 million Earths could fit

inside it; and so far away that it takes its light eight minutes to

reach us, even traveling at 186,000 mph.

But how hot is it?

“If we took Chris and threw him into the sun --” Schinhofen

started before peals of laughter interrupted him.

“Aw, come on!” Chris protested at the prospect of getting tossed

into a 27-million-degree star made of hydrogen and helium.

“I thought the sun was made of fire,” 8-year-old McKenna Gordon

said.

The students took a break from their lecture to sit at their desks

and make a mobile of the solar system.

First, they cut a semicircle with big solar flares from a piece of

yellow construction paper for the sun. Then, they got a piece of

paper with each of the planets to cut out and tape to a string

hanging from the giant sun segment. As they worked on the planets,

Schinhofen gave facts about each one -- how hot it is, how many moons

it has and its composition.

They learned that two planets are named after cars and one after

Mickey Mouse’s dog. Or vice-versa.

But by far, the third-graders’ favorite planet name, at least

judging by their giggles, had to be Uranus.

* IN THE CLASSROOM is a weekly feature in which Daily Pilot

education writer Marisa O’Neil visits a campus in the Newport-Mesa

area and writes about her experience.