Earth's Energy Source

The video ended with two questions: “How does energy enter the ecosystem?” and “Why is there less of it at the top of the food web?” To answer these questions, we have to start with the Sun.

The Sun is about 150 million kilometers (93 million miles) from Earth and it’s huge! It has a radius of 696,000 km, 109 times Earth’s radius. The Sun’s volume is staggering—1.3 million Earths could fit in the Sun.

Close up image of the sun showing an eruption of plasma. An image of the Earth is shown for scale. The height of the eruption is about 8 times higher than Earth's diamater.
The Sun is a hot ball of glowing gases. From time to time, these gases erupt. The eruptions can be many times larger than the entire Earth, shown here for scale.