A Beautiful Planet calls Earth's atmosphere "a delicate cocoon of air that shields us from our star's radiation." Of course, the atmosphere doesn't completely block electromagnetic radiation from the Sun; without some sunlight reaching the surface, plants could not harvest the Sun's energy, and practically no life as we know it could exist. The atmosphere's ozone layer does filter out much of the harmful ultraviolet light (or "UV rays") produced by the Sun. UV rays can cause skin cancer, and catastrophic damage to the ozone layer may have contributed to Earth's most extensive mass extinction of species ever, the End-Permian extinction (also known
Why Does the Sun Shine? (The Sun Is a Mass of Incandescent Gas) Brothers Band for their 1973 album, "Brothers and Sisters". The third track, "Whirlpool", is a song written by alternative rock band Meat Puppets, and can be found on their 1991 album, "Forbidden Places". The fourth and final track, entitled "Spy", is the lone original track on the EP. It was later re-recorded for the band's successive studio album, "John Henry", released in 1994. Why Does the Sun Shine? (The Sun Is a Mass of Incandescent Gas) Why Does the Sun Shine? (The Sun Is a Mass of Incandescent Gas) is an EP by alternative rock band They Might Be Giants,