I feel negligent for writing articles about nature for this long without featuring the real “star” of the show, the player without which none of these other neighbours could survive. Our most stellar neighbour, the Sun, is responsible for delivering almost all the energy on Earth and making our planet habitable.

Us Earthlings orbit around the Sun once roughly every 365 days, giving us our year from a distance of approximately 150 million kilometres away. If we ignored all the crushing void of space in between and the limitations of the average commercial passenger plane flying at 900 km/hour you would arrive at the sun in approximately 19 years. You would, at that point, be very crispy as it is 5700 degrees Celsius on the Sun’s surface. However, it is this inferno of the fusion of hydrogen that creates the solar energy that arrives on Earth’s doorstep at just under 8.5 minutes as light after leaving the Sun’s surface. This is where the magic begins.

Miraculously, Earth is the perfect distance from our closest star, more affectionately known as the Sun or Sol, to provide us with just enough heat from this solar energy that the surface is neither too hot nor too cold to have all the plants and animals survive. It also allows us to have liquid water. Astronomers refer to this as the Goldilocks zone. If this is not enough information to “warm you” to the idea of the Sun’s importance, it is only just the beginning.

Down here on the planet’s surface only the plants have figured out how to convert this marvellous solar energy into carbohydrates through the process of photosynthesis. All the rest of the Earthlings either have to eat the plants full of carbohydrates or the animals that eat the plants in order to get the energy we need to go about our day. Every time you pet a cat, go for a walk, or even blink, the energy for that motion came from the sun. Every tree growing in the forest, or strawberry found in the field is produced by this energy. It is a remarkable system. In the last century humans have even found ways to capture this energy in solar cells to create electricity and in ancient times used it to start fires with glass.

My heart is a “glow” daily with the wonderous sights of nature. Not only does the Sun keep the energy flowing in the system and making it nice and cozy for me to live here, but it is literally brightening my day. How could I watch the ice melt, find animal tracks in the snow, or see a bird take flight without these beams of sunshine.

As you head into the diminishing hours of daylight in November I hope you appreciate the increase in the dawning of the days you get to witness. Take a moment to be grateful for that giant ball of burning gas that makes our world go round and paints our sunrises and sunsets in all of their glory.