It has been doing so since time immemorial, with no notable changes.The only reasonable energy source that we know of, that can keep the sun going like that, is nuclear fusion.To view or print a difficult word search puzzle click on its title.The standard form of the periodic table shown here includes periods (shown horizontally) and groups (shown vertically).The periodic table is a masterpiece of organised chemical information and the evolution of chemistry's periodic table into the current form is an astonishing achievement.

For all the nitty-gritty details of the solar neutrino problem as it appeared before being solved, see John Bahcall's authoritative book (Bahcall 1989), complemented by his more recent updates (Bahcall 1997a; Bahcall & Krastev & Smirnov 1998), and with a more accessible introduction in Bahcall (1990).As with many other anomalies in science, creationists (e.g.Oard 1995, Snelling 1997, Sarfati 2000) have invoked the solar neutrino problem as evidence of more fundamental problems in orthodox "uniformitarian" science.But this solar model is a fairly recent construction, and the supporting evidence even more so.Speculations about the nature of the sun are as old as recorded history, but I shall not dwell on the more fanciful versions of old, as they are not pertinent to the solar neutrino issue.This final section, with answers to creationist claims, is rather short; the bulk of the is in the lengthy introductory sections, containing all the background knowledge needed to understand the answers.We have today a coherent picture of the sun's internal structure and function, supported by several independent lines of evidence.But when detailed calculations of the expected neutrino flux were confronted with measurements, about 30 years ago, a significant discrepancy was found.Only about half of the expected neutrinos could be found.It was clear, however, that this energy source, while ample by human standards, couldn't last forever.Various calculations gave limits on the order of a few tens of millions of years of steady sunshine: "..would, I think, be exceedingly rash to assume as probable anything more than twenty million years of the sun's light in the past history of the earth, or to reckon on more than five or six million years of sunlight for time to come" (Thomson 1889, p 369).This age was troublesome for many; it was too long for Biblical literalists, but too short for geologists and biologists, who could see that the earth and its fauna had a far longer history.Physicists like Lord Kelvin did not, however, care about the opinion of either literalists or biologists, so their arguments had little impact.After that I will discuss various possible solutions to the solar neutrino problem.Finally, the creationist arguments concerning solar neutrinos, and other solar anomalies, real and fictional, will be treated.