Additionally, how do we get Vitamin D from a nuclear reaction? It doesn’t seem intuitive that a nuclear fusion reaction would suffice me with an important nutrient.
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The sun is basically a candle. A gigantic, round, nuclear candle.
It has a flame (all over), and it has a limited amount of fuel (it’s mass). In a few billion years, this candle will have burned up, and the flame will die out.
Like the flame of a candle, this produces a lot of energy in the form of radiation: you can feel the heat of a flame radiating from a distance. But this is a nuclear candle, so besides heat and visible light, it produces all kinds of radiation.
Because the sun is so big, it produces a massive amount of radiation. A part of this, is the sunshine that reaches the Earth.
Much of the more harmful radiation is filtered out by the Earth’s atmosphere and electromagnetic field. But as you know, nothing feels like sunlight 😉
This is the source of energy that fuels all life on the planet.
For example, food. Animals eat eachother or plants, but plants don’t eat other living things. Plants “eat” sunlight. All a plant needs to grow, is earth, water, and sunlight.
They use earth and water to grow, and they absorb sunlight to power that entire process.
In turn, animals eat those plants in order to live, and other animals eat them to live.
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