SOLAR FACTS

SUPERSTITION

In India pregnant women are sometimes kept indoors during an eclipse

for fear that their babies will be born with cleft lips.

NUCLEAR MAYHEM

The same men who discovered the sun’s source of power helped

build the atomic bomb.

IT WILL MAKE YOU SNEEZE

25% of people sneeze when exposed to sunlight.

THE ATTISHOO SYNDROME

That sneezing thing we just talked about? Well, it’s a real problem to

people like fighter pilots. In fact, it has been dubbed the attishoo syndrome.

CONDENSED SUNLIGHT

Tromso, in the far north of Norway, receives the same amount of

annual sunlight as the tropics except all within a 10 week period.

IT IS HEAVY

Well, technically it’s massive. In fact, it accounts for about 99%

of the mass of the entire solar system.

COMET TAILS

If it weren’t for the sun, then comets wouldn’t leave a trail of icy particles

that always point away from the sun. Why away?

SOLAR WIND

It’s a celestial breeze made up of electrons and protons that have

escaped from the Sun’s gravity and it is responsible for blowing

those comet tails away from the sun.