Answers to Outside the Box Puzzles from page 60 1. Like a bull in a china shop 2. Loud and clear 3. Makes your mouth water 4. No man is an island 5. As pleased as punch 6. Quick as lightning Fast Facts Scientists have studied our glorious sun for centuries, ultimately arriving at a general consensus of data. • Surface temperature is 5,500 degrees Celsius. • Temperature inside the sun can reach 15 million degrees Celsius. • If the sun were hollow, one million earths could fit inside it. • It’s an almost-perfect sphere. • Light from the sun takes eight minutes to reach earth. • The sun is about 4.6 billion years old. • It is composed mostly of hydrogen and helium. • The sun is by far the largest mass in our solar system. • It’s just one of about 100 million stars in our galaxy. • The energy created by its core is nuclear fusion. • The sun rotates in the opposite direction to earth. • It’s about 1.4 million km wide. Famous figures, historical and otherwise, have expressed varying opinions about the validity and importance of facts. Here are some examples. “I am not one of those who, in expressing opinions, confine themselves to facts. ” -Mark Twain “There is a point when a personal opinion shades off into an error of fact. ” -Gene Siskel “I’m an old-fashioned guy. I believe in the Enlightenment, and reason, and logic, and you know, facts. ” -Barack Obama “Facts and truth really don’t have much to do with each other. ” -William Faulkner “There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact. ” -Arthur Conan Doyle “The main facts in human life are five: birth, food, sleep, love and death. ” -E.M. Forster Southward Bound Time and again, our feathered friends demonstrate that they don’t require road maps or GPS devices for their annual fall migration from Canada to warmer wintering grounds such as Florida, California and Mexico. Exactly how they precisely navigate the long trip to their intended destinations is not clearly understood. There are various theories. • Birds’ eyes interact with a particular region in their brains that probably helps them determine which way is north. • They seem to have an internal global positioning system which allows them to follow the same pattern every year. • Tiny amounts of iron in the neurons of a bird’s inner ear may help determine direction. • A nerve connecting a bird’s beak to its brain may help the bird assess its exact location. • Some researchers believe that birds can smell their way to an intended destination. • Birds can get compass information from the sun, the stars and the earth’s magnetic field. • They get information from the position of the setting sun and from landmarks seen during the day. Sun Science 101 Facing Facts 62 | www.snowbirds.org
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