“Do not believe what your teacher tells youmerely out of respect for the teacher.”

Gautama Buddha02ONE WORLD, DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVES

Explore diversity in vision and figure out how the same topic may be vieweddifferently by different folks. This is a mirror to society and life

i-OPENER

What is the FUTUREof our sun?Even if Earth spends the rest of its life escaping alienattacks, dodging space rocks, and avoiding a nuclearapocalypse, there will come a day when our own sunwill eventually destroy us... Should we worry?

Bleeding Earth dryAll good things eventually come toan end. Every book has a final chap-ter, every pizza has one last bite,and every person has a dyingbreath. And one day, about four orfive billion years from now, the sunwill burn through its last gasp ofhydrogen and start burning heli-um instead. “Once hydrogen hasstopped burning in the core of thesun, the star has formally left themain sequence and can be consid-ered a red giant,” Jillian Scudder,an astrophysicist at the Universityof Sussex said. “It will then spendabout a billion years expanding andburning helium in its core, with ashell around it where hydrogen isstill able to fuse into helium.”

As the sun sheds its outer lay-ers, its mass will decrease, loosen-ing its gravitational hold on all theplanets. So all planets orbiting thesun will drift a little further away.When the sun becomes a full blownred giant, Scudder said, its core willget extremely hot and dense whileits outer layer expands... a lot. Itsatmosphere will stretch out to Mars’current orbit, swallowing Mercuryand Venus.

Although the sun’s atmospherewill reach Mars’ orbit, Mars will es-cape, as it will have wandered pastthe reach of the sun’s expanding at-

mosphere. Earth, on the other hand,has two options: either escape theexpanding sun or be consumed byit. But even if our planet slips outof the sun’s reach, the intense tem-peratures will burn it to a sad, deadcrisp. “In either case, our planet willbe pretty close to the surface of thered giant, which is not good for life,”Scudder said.

From red giant towhite dwarf Once the sun has emptied its fuelreserves, it will become unstableand start to pulse. With every pulse,the sun will shrug off layers of itsouter atmosphere until all that’sleft is a cold, heavy core, sur-rounded by a planetary nebula.

With each passing day this core,known as a white dwarf, will cooland fade hopelessly out of existenceas if it didn’t host the most livelyplanet ever discovered in the sweep-ing canvas of the universe.

Photo: Getty images

Photo: Getty images

Photo: AFP

DEATH OF THE SUN

Sun-like star

This is thelongest, moststable period ofa star’s life. Itconverts hydro-gen to helium inits core, gener-ating heat and light.

Red giant Planetary Nebula White dwarf Black dwarf

As thenuclear fuelbecomesdepleted, thecore con-tracts andouter layersexpand.

Now the outer lay-ers of the starstart to drift into space. Thestar loses most ofits mass to thenebula.

The star cools andshrinks; it will even-tually be only a fewthousand miles indiameter! No nuclearreactions take placeand the faint starradiates its heat into space.

Eventuallythe star haslost all itsheat tospace andis now coldand dark.

In approximately 5 billionyears, the sun will begin thehelium-burning process, turn-ing into a red giant star. Whenit expands, its outer layerswill consume Mercury andVenus, and reach Earth.

Is quarantine necessary?The practice of isolatingpeople or animals suspectedto be carrying an infectiousdisease is not new

History ➤ In 1348, Venice establishedthe first official quarantine sys-tem in order to keep the bubonicplague, or “Black Death” fromspreading through its ports. AVenetian council was given theauthority to prevent ships,cargo, and people suspected ofinfection from entering thecity for 40 days. Duringthis time, the city built aholding centre on anisland off the coast, whereinfected individualswere sent to eitherwait out their 40-day trial, or die. This isola-tion period becameknown as quar-antinario, taken fromthe Italian word for ‘40’.

The largest quarantine inhuman history➤ The Wuhan coron-avirus has resulted inthe largest quaran-tine in human histo-ry. China has quar-antined 16 cities to

try and contain theWuhan coronavirus,putting an esti-

mated 46 million people onlockdown.

➤ On January 23,authorities in Wuhan

shut down the city’s publictransportation, includingbuses, trains, ferries, andthe airport. But someexperts fear the quarantine

may have come too late,or could even make the

situation worse, by mak-ing access to food, fuel,and medical suppliesmore difficult.

Why quarantinehealthy people?➤ We don’t yet have vaccines totreat the fast-spreading coron-avirus. Isolating sick people is aneffective way to reduce transmis-sion of a virus. With many viruses,an infected person is only able toinfect other people when they areshowing symptoms of the disease.➤ However, with some viruses, thevirus can spread in the absence ofsymptoms – either during the incu-bation period (days before peoplebecome visibly ill, believed to be upto 14 days in the case of coron-avirus) or in people who never showany signs of severe illness.

Quarantine is inevitably aconflict between individualcivil liberties and publichealth. Critics of quarantinesay incremental restrictions,enforced steadily and trans-parently, tend to work farbetter than draconian meas-ures, particularly in enlistingthe public’s cooperation,which is especially importantfor properly handling out-breaks in our interconnected,globalised world.

IS IT A VIOLATION OFCIVIL LIBERTIES?

Photo: Getty Images

It’s important to make yourvoice heard.

Send Letters to the Editor

at ttooiinniiee117755@@ggmmaaiill..ccoomm

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Smartphones: Binding us in shacklesA movie? A ticket? News? Weather? Traffic?Your homework? A call? All this and more isnow available on our smartphones. Unfortu-nately, not all of us know the dangers ofthis modern convenience. While it has con-nected us to unknown people, we have losttime for our loved ones. What’s more, I haveobserved my parents, siblings and myselfsitting occupied with our mobile phones inthe same room. It’s sad how we don’t havetime for our families. Weekends go in chat-ting, posting, liking and commenting on thelives of other people. Forget about going onpicnics or just sitting and talking to eachother, we can’t even have our meals togeth-er! Life was much more peaceful and enjoy-able when smartphones didn’t exist. As aclass XI student I have seen this transitionfrom a ‘no smartphone’ era to today. Andwhen I draw a comparison I feel depressed.

Back in those days when I had nothing todo, I remember going to the park. But todaywe call ourselves busy only when we arehooked to these gadgets. And there’s notime for physical excursions either.RABIA KHAN, class XI, Bluebells School

International, Kailash Colony, New Delhi

Right to Equality? It is saddening, as a young citizen of India,to see that while people in our countryspeak of 'Right to Equality' we have reser-vations based on the caste of a person. Isthis really what equality stands for?Equality should not only mean everyone has

a right to education, but that everyoneshould have equal opportunities in any field.Social upliftment should apply to a personwho is economically backward and not to aperson who claims to be socially backward.How can we think of becoming an advancedcountry when our citizens are being super-ficially discriminated on the basis of their‘social status’?P SREEMAYI, class VIII, Sishu GrihaMontessori and High School, Bengaluru

Live to the fullestWhen was the last time you went for a walkin the garden, just for fresh air, or anunplanned midnight trip to the ice creamstore, or just simply re-reading your favo-urite book? Are we so caught up in life thatwe have forgotten to live it? Enjoying thosesmall moments, cherishing memories, shar-ing love! Working hard for success is animportant trait, but is losing yourself in theprocess right? We are all caught up in a ratrace. But, if you strain yourself in the jour-ney itself, will you have any energy left toenjoy the victory? Nothing is more impor-tant than you are. Remember you have tolive with yourself forever! Take out sometime for yourself. Maybe just 10 minutes.Just relax and don’t forget to live!SANIA S BAFNA, class X, Trinity

International School (Sion), Mumbai

It’s important to make yourvoice heard.

Send Letters to the Editor

at ttooiinniiee117755@@ggmmaaiill..ccoomm

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Pen: The strongest weaponAll of us have a powerful weapon in ourhands through which we can reach everycorner of the world and fight without injur-ing anyone. This weapon is none other thanthe “Pen”. There are many great leaderswho fought using the pen. A pen is used tofight for justice, equality and freedom. It isused to fight against discrimination, childlabour, women's inequality and racial dis-crimination. All citizens can express their

feelings and desires through the pen. Solet's lift our weapon and make our futurebright. Someone had rightly said: “Pen ismightier than a sword”. I would like to add:“Pen connects you to the whole world”.M ASEEL AHMED, class VIII, HMRInternational School

Global warming: We mustact quicklyThe biggest issue in today’s world is globalwarming. Global warming is the rise in tem-perature which causes Ozone layer deple-tion. This is triggered by many actions likeabnormal use of fossil fuels, deforestationas well as improper disposal of waste espe-cially single-use plastic. Many climateactivists like Greta Thunberg, VanessaNakate and Lilly Platt are creating aware-ness about global warming. We know thatglobal warming has caused wildfires inAustralia and the US and the ice caps aremelting fast. We can contribute towardsdecreasing this by following a few measureslike using bicycles for short distance com-muting, planting more saplings and treesand avoiding using single-use plastics. Ascitizens we can also segregate the waste as

recyclable, composable and landfill waste inour homes. We should save Earth not onlyfor ourselves but also for future generations. RP HASINI, class VI, DAV Public School,Velachery, Chennai

Tame your angerAnger is an emotion that is common to allof us. But only those who can control theirown anger are mentally stable. This isbecause anger makes people go crazy andthey end up doing something even crazier.As students, even if we have a thousandproblems we still need to be positive by notreacting to them by remembering thisquote: “If life shows you a hundred prob-lems to make you sad and angry then showlife a thousand reasons to smile and behappy”. Only when we are good at control-ling our emotions can we be conscious ofwhat is happening. And to control youranger you should first think before youspeak, and express your anger only whenyou calm down. Remember to take enoughrest and find possible solutions withoutholding a grudge against someone or some-thing. After all, only you end up being theloser with all that stress. T SAI SUBHIKSHA, class IX, Suprabhat ModelHigh School, Hyderabad

Photo: NYT

What is the FUTUREof our sun?