Allen Potter, age 9, of Phoenix, Arizona for his question:

What materials are in the sun?

At Mt. Wilson, there is a telescope that sits atop a 150 foot tower. It takes pictures out of this world. To us these pictures would look like shaded bands. Actually they are spectra ‑pictures of the sun. They split the blended light of the sun into its rainbow colors.

Experts point out dark ribs across the rainbow band of colors. These dark lines are made by certain materials resent in the blazing sun, dark line across the red bar of the rainbow shows the presence of hydrogen in the sun. Two lines in the orange‑yellow section are made by the sun's sodium. A wide line in the deep violet shows the presence of calcium.

Altogether, the scientists have discovered some 65 of our chemical elements to be there in the sun, There are over 90 elements present in nature on earth. Maybe the missing ones are also present in the sun. For some are hard to spot in the spectrum and some are very rare on earth.

Also present in the sun are a few compounds not found on earth. It is likely that the materials in the sun are not too different from the materials of which the earth is made. Except, of course that they are much, much hotter.