The Sun is not a giant fireball like you often see it drawn as a ball of flames; in reality, there is no fire up there at all. What’s actually going on is much cooler—or hotter, you know what I mean. The Sun is a giant ball of helium and hydrogen, but not in their gaseous forms. The hydrogen and helium are so hot that the atoms break apart and get turned into plasma, and the Sun’s plasma is similar to fire but is made differently and is way hotter. In the core of the Sun, the nuclei of these atoms are smushed together and release light and heat energy in the process. Unlike starting a fire, there is no oxygen required to make the Sun shine; nothing is on fire, nothing is burning, just a plasma glow.