Answer:
Both articles are about the sun. But their content varies, along with their purpose and audience. The newspaper editorial focuses on the possibility of humans living on the sun one day in the distant future. The author doesn’t follow scientific reasoning, so his purpose is probably to entertain. He uses a lot of literary and figurative language to express his ideas:
“If our earth fell to the sun, it would melt as a snowflake falling upon a blazing forest.”
“The dead satellite's destiny thenceforward was to show gratitude for past heat by moving our tides and cheering our poets.”
“We shall move up a step—as boys do in the public schools. We shall have been moon men, earthmen, and shall graduate into sun men. Think of a home so vast! On that grand star we shall lead lives worthwhile, and justify Huxley's belief that men exist somewhere compared to whom we should ‘be as black beetles compared to us.’"
In contrast, the second article tells readers about a study designed to solve a scientific puzzle about the sun’s extreme heat. The article presents facts that clearly inform the reader about the scientific problem and how the experiment solved it:
“Scientists zapped tiny particles of iron and heated them to a temperature of more than 2.1 million degrees.”
“It took more than 10 years to figure out how to get the temperature and energy density high enough for this experiment . . .”
“The first element they tested was iron. It’s one of the most important materials in the sun, in part because of its role in controlling the sun’s heat.”
