Unlike Earth, our Sun is a giant ball of mostly hydrogen and helium. Astronomers managed to figure that one out roughly 100 years ago. But after all this time, they still can't come to an agreement on what "mostly" means, precisely. Hosted by: Savannah Geary ---------- Support SciShow by becoming a patron on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/scishow ---------- Huge thanks go to the following Patreon supporters for helping us keep SciShow free for everyone forever: Adam Brainard, Alex Hackman, Ash, Benjamin Carleski, Bryan Cloer, charles george, Chris Mackey, Chris Peters, Christoph Schwanke, Christopher R Boucher, DrakoEsper, Eric Jensen, Friso, Garrett Galloway, Harrison Mills, J. Copen, Jaap Westera, Jason A Saslow, Jeffrey Mckishen, Jeremy Mattern, Kenny Wilson, Kevin Bealer, Kevin Knupp, Lyndsay Brown, Matt Curls, Michelle Dove, Piya Shedden, Rizwan Kassim, Sam Lutfi ---------- Looking for SciShow elsewhere on the internet? SciShow Tangents Podcast: https://scishow-tangents.simplecast.com/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@scishow Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/scishow Instagram: http://instagram.com/thescishow Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/scishow #SciShow #science #education #learning #complexly ---------- Sources https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/astronomers-still-dont-know-exactly-what-the-sun-is-made-of https://arxiv.org/pdf/0909.0948.pdf https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/487018 https://www.nature.com/articles/nature14048 https://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/pdf/2021/09/aa40445-21.pdf https://academic.oup.com/mnras/article/508/2/2236/6332299 https://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/pdf/2022/05/aa42971-21.pdf https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.122.235001 https://academic.oup.com/mnras/article/498/2/1992/5900537 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.39.1013.791 https://www.amnh.org/learn-teach/curriculum-collections/cosmic-horizons-book/cecilia-payne-profile https://webbtelescope.org/contents/media/images/01F8GF8DK2PRY4FP9DA2XPQC8S https://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu//full/1925PhDT.........1P/0000184.000.html https://icc.dur.ac.uk/~tt/Lectures/Galaxies/TeX/lec/node27.html http://spiff.rit.edu/classes/phys230/lectures/spec_interp/spec_interp.html https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/an-elemental-problem-with-the-sun/ https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/research/topic/elemental-abundances https://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/interior.shtml https://egyankosh.ac.in/bitstream/123456789/19462/1/Unit-5.pdf Image Sources https://www.gettyimages.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Blue_Marble_(5052124705).jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cecilia_Helena_Payne-Gaposchkin_(1900-1979)_-_Science_Service.jpg https://webbtelescope.org/contents/media/images/01F8GF8DK2PRY4FP9DA2XPQC8S https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Emission_spectrum-Fe.svg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Fraunhofer_lines.svg https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/11071/ https://science.nasa.gov/resource/the-solar-spectrum/ https://www.nasa.gov/image-article/hubble-captures-a-cluster-in-the-cloud/ https://spaceplace.nasa.gov/gallery-sun/en/ https://supernova.eso.org/exhibition/images/0406_C_cutaway-CCfinal/ https://www.nasa.gov/image-article/illustration-of-magnetic-field-of-sun-kin/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sun_poster.svg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Magnificent_CME_Erupts_on_the_Sun_-_August_31.jpg https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/11670/ https://nasaviz.gsfc.nasa.gov/3496/ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Periodic_Table_Armtuk3.svg