Sun (Worlds Beyond)

Sun (Worlds Beyond)

From School Library JournalGrade 5-7-Illustrated with a mix of well-chosen NASA photos and dramatic space paintings, this account of the Sun's past, present, and future is more specifically detailed than Seymour Simon's The Sun (Morrow, 1986), and up-to-date enough to include mention of the massive solar storm of 2001. As well as describing the Sun's origins and internal processes, its effects on Earth's biosphere and atmosphere, and the likely stages of its final few million years, Miller lays out instructions for a simple but safe pinhole projector for young astronomers to construct. Readers may be confused when he pegs the Sun's surface temperature at 10,000 degrees, then a few pages later announces that the Sun has no true surface and, anyway, it's 8300 degrees-but otherwise he sheds direct and appropriately melodramatic light on the solar life cycle.John Peters, New York Public LibraryCopyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.Presents information about the sun's origins, characteristics, future, and importance to the earth.From BooklistGr. 5-8. This volume from the Worlds Beyond series presents information and images related to the sun. Discussions include the nature and structure of the sun, its beginning and end, and the importance of solar energy to life on Earth. Both the writing and the visuals go beyond stating the facts to help readers imagine the ideas and processes described. Some of the colorful, well-reproduced illustrations are images from NASA, but others are orignal art created by Miller. The diagrams are usually clear and attractive, but on the untitled, double-page illustration that apparently shows the approximate distance of each planet's orbit from the sun, the distances are not all drawn to scale. One small problem in an otherwise visually inviting and well-written volume. Carolyn PhelanCopyright