A’rianna Duval
Mrs. Kent
English 8th
2 February 2015
The Sun
The sun is actually a star just like the stars that shine throughout the night. The sun is a medium-sized star measuring 864,948mi (1,392,000km) across--100 times the diameter of the earth (Farndon 47). The core, the convection zone, and the photosphere are four main layers of the sun. The core makes energy from hydrogen for the world’s sight (Elvis 12). About 99 percent of the energy generated by the sun through nuclear fusion is produced in its core (Koehler 14). Photons transport energy generated in the sun’s core. This movement from the sun’s core is not instant, in fact, it can take up to 150,000 years for energy to reach the photosphere. From the photosphere, energy generated in the core streams into the sun’s atmosphere and out into space. This energy that lights and heats the earth (14).
The secret of the sun’s power lies in its center, or core. Core temperatures reach more than 27 million degrees Fahrenheit (in Celsius it reaches up to 15 million degrees). The plasma is about 150 times denser than water (Koehler 14). Under a massive amount of pressure heat and burning happens (Jefferis 10). During the heat and burning process, particles of hydrogen join together, or fuse to make hydrogen. While this is happening, energy is being given off. It is this power that provides the sun’s heat and light. Further out, the core heats layers of gas in the convection zone. Last, energy reaches the surface of the sun
The sun is a big, hot ball of hydrogen gas which enables us to feel the sun’s heat and see its brightness. Every second of every day, the sun transforms over 700 million tons of hydrogen into over 600 million tons of helium. The sun produces so much energy that we can see the sun’s brightness and feel its heat. Hydrogen fusion takes place in the Sun’s core and the gas is heated by the energy that is discharged above the core. Ultimately the gas becomes less dense and the heat from below turns the gas
It is no secret that the earth’s sun is “special” to say the least. Some would say it was designed to be unique to help sustain life on planet earth. However, other nearby stars were not designed to sustain life. One example would be the star Proxima Centauri. This star recently had a short increase in radiation, known as a flare. This flare caused the star to become a thousand times brighter for ten seconds. Earth’s sun also has flares, but they are much smaller. When Proxima Centauri is at its brightest point it is still ten times brighter than our suns largest flare. This is just one example of how special our sun really is.
Sunspots are dark spots on the Sun caused its magnetic field. The spots are dark because they are cooler than the area of the Sun that surrounds them and are often as big as the Earth.
The sun is usually a hot ball, a yellow dwarf star that glows gasses at the central part of the solar system.
13) When we say a star “moves” on a H-R diagram we are not saying that it is physically moving from one place to another, we are saying that it is transitioning from one stage of its evolutionary life to another. For example we might say it is moving from pre-main sequence to main sequence. This means that the star has moves from an early stage in its life to the middle stage of its life. It has physically stayed in the same place in space.
1. The earth’s sun is a star, it generates heat and light through nuclear fusion.
Sunspots are temporarily cooler and darker compared to their surroundings, and are only 4500 degrees celsius compared to the regular surface temperature of the sun which is 6000 degrees celsius. They are able to shrink and grow as they move around on the sun’s surface, and are able to get as large as 80,000 kilometers wide. They can last anywhere from a few short hours to a couple of months. Sometimes the sun consists of many sunspots, and sometimes there are very few to none. When very few sunspots are visible this is known as a solar minimum, compared to when there are a large number of sunspots is known as a solar
Sunspots are regions on the surface of the sun, which is called the photosphere. Sunspots are cool, dark and temporary. The surface temperate of the sun is 6000 Celsius and sunspots are about 1500 Celsius. They can last up to hours or even months. Sunspots usually expand and contract as they move across the surface of the sun and can be as large as 80,000 km in diameter. Sunspots are magnetic fields on the sun, which are thousand times stronger than the magnetic fields on the earth. The magnetic field is the strongest in the darker parts of the sunspot, which is called umbra. The field is weaker in the lighter part, which is the penumbra. These are solar "storms", a kind of "burp" where the Sun ejects high-speed and energetic particles, which
a) The Milky Way is an island of hundreds of billions of stars, gas, and dust held together by gravity to form a disk
The sun is a very powerful star and their love is one of the most powerful and true
“The sun is the heart of our solar system” (NASA Solar System Exploration) which is located at the center of the solar system. The sun has a radius of 432,168.6 miles. You would need 1.3 million Earths to fill up the sun. But the sun is not the largest star there are several that are much larger. The sun is the closest star to Earth which is around 93 million miles. The sun is like a big ball of gas. “In terms of the number of atoms, it is made of 91.0% hydrogen and 8.9% helium.” (NASA Solar System Exploration). But if you measure by mass the sun is made up of “70.6% hydrogen and 27.4% helium.” (NASA Solar System Exploration). Gravitational attraction which is made by pressure and temperature in the core holds together the sun. There is three main layers in the sun which are the core, the radiative zone, and the convective zone. Inside the core temperatures can reach 27 million degrees Fahrenheit
The greatest energy that can be produced by the sun is electricity. Photovoltaics, or solar cells, capture the sun and convert it into electricity. Solar cells were discovered by the Europeans back in the 1870’s when they used selenium to develop the telegraph. They found that when light hits selenium it would produce and electrical current. Soon enough there were many scientists and engineers working on photovoltaic systems. Silicon and Selenium proved to be the two best elements to conduct electricity when light hits them. Photovoltaic systems (PV cell) work by converting the suns light into electricity. A semi conducting material absorbs the sunlight, that energy knocks electrons loose from their atoms, this allows the electrons to flow through the material to produce electricity. The further development of solar cells can be attributed to the satellite industry. Solar cells were expensive and there was no use for them until satellites came. Because it is impractical to tether satellites it became important to develop solar energy at any cost that would power these satellites. This created a sustainable market for solar power, the first of its kind.
The churning motion of the material in the convective core causes the nuclear ash of helium to be mixed with the surrounding hydrogen fuel. This motion ensures that virtually all the hydrogen will be available to the nuclear fires that heat the star.
Indecent bodies like the sun. Stars are made up of big exploding balls of gas, mostly hydrogen and helium. The sun is similarly a star made up of huge amounts of hydrogen, undergoing a continuous nuclear reaction like a hydrogen bomb. Stars come about when vast clouds of hydrogen, helium and dust contract and collapse due to gravity. The clouds came from astronomical plasma from “The Big Bang”, but the dust comes from the supernovae of other stars.
The heat and light of the sun come from the nuclear reactions of hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, and helium. So the sun is just one great big atom smashing, gas creating, nuclear furnace that gives off much appreciated energy. But this is not all that happens on the sun’s surface, some exciting stuff does happen up there every once in a while.