The Sun - closed

Part 1:

1. Describe what exactly the sun is? Include what it is made of etc. (4)
2. The Sun is personified in many mythologies. What did the Greeks personify it as? (2)
3. What is it believed that the inner core of the sun’ temperature is? (2)
4. What is the surface of the sun called? (2)
5. What is the chromosphere? (3)
6. When the moon comes directly in front of the sun and the earth, what is it called? (2)
7. What is solar wind? (4)
8. What is the nearest planet to the sun? (2)
9. How old is it believed that the sun is? (2)
10. When was the first image of the sun caught on satellite? (2)


Part 2:

What do you believe will happen to the future of the sun? (at least 200 words)

Bonus

Post a picture of the sun and describe in no less than 150 words, what the picture shows.


Part 1: 25 housepoints
Part 2: 15 housepoints
Bonus: 10 housepoints

Dont forget to cite your sources (websites used) and no copying/pasting

Have fun!

Part 1:

1. Describe what exactly the sun is? Include what it is made of etc. (4) The sun is basically a gigantic star that heats and warms our fair planet Earth. Mostly, the sun contains hydrogen and helium, but there are traces of other elements such as oxygen, magnesium, iron, neon, and calcium.
2. The Sun is personified in many mythologies. What did the Greeks personify it as? (2) The greek god of the son, Apollo (or sometimes Helios) would drive a chariot (which represented the sun) across the skies each morning, so that the sun would rise.
3. What is it believed that the inner core of the sun’ temperature is? (2) It is believed that the core temperature of the sun is 27 million degrees Fahrenheit (15 million Kelvins for those scientifical people)
4. What is the surface of the sun called? (2) The surface of the sun is the photosphere.
5. What is the chromosphere? (3) The chromosphere is the red circle we can sometimes see around the sun during a solar eclipse. The red color is from the abundance of hydrogen.
6. When the moon comes directly in front of the sun and the earth, what is it called? (2) A solar eclipse.
7. What is solar wind? (4) Charged particles from the sun that make up and outwards wind on the sun. They can alter magnetic fields, such as Earth’s.
8. What is the nearest planet to the sun? (2) Mercury.
9. How old is it believed that the sun is? (2) 4.5 billion years old.
10. When was the first image of the sun caught on satellite? (2) December 24, 1995

http://www.sunblock99.org.uk/sb99/people/PYoung/clue_4.html
http://www.loggia.com/myth/helios.html
http://fusedweb.pppl.gov/CPEP/Chart_Pages/5.Plasmas/SunLayers.html
http://www.astro.uiuc.edu/~kaler/AstroBrief/chapter12/sunage.html
http://soho.estec.esa.nl/mission/1995.html


Part 2:

I believe, that, just like any other star, the sun will eventually explode. True, it’s not the most optimistic of outcomes, but it is, sadly, the most likely. The sun is just another star, and stars do eventually burn out. When the sun burns out, it’ll unfortunately become a black hole and suck the earth in! Without Earth, where would we wizards (and muggles) go? Fortunately, we are well prepared because before that happens, us wizards, with the help of Seers, will know precisely when that day will happen. Then, we shall fly to Pluto on special brooms that allow us to do such, and create a colony there. Then we will live happily ever after with some new Sun that will not blow up as quickly as our old one did. Of course, once we arrive there, we shall have to perform a mass-memory charm on all of the Muggles we so graciously saved. But, in the end, I think we’ll be better off without our old sun-it did cause skin cancer and diseases like that. So, I look forward to living on Pluto, where we shall have our own happy little community of Muggles and Wizards living together.

Bonus



In this lovely photograph we can see the moon moving in front of the sun. This is causing a solar eclipse. The reddish ring around the edge is the chromosphere. The black circle is obviously, the moon, which is causing the eclipse.. The chromosphere is all we can see of the sun, really. But, if we were to see more of it we would probably see things such as sun spots, perhaps a prominence or two, depending on how close this photograph is. In fact, I believe that I can very faintly see a prominence in the bottom half of this picture. A prominence, by the way, is a large eruption of gas produced by hydrogen in the chromosphere. In fact, the chromosphere can also sometimes be called the Corona, for crown. That is what a corona in fact looks like in the eclipse, a crown around the sun.

Part 1:

1. The sun is a star. It is made up of mainly hydrogen atoms that are fused together to get other, more complex atoms such as helium, mainly but also lithium, magnesium, calcium, etc. The nuclear fusion gives out a colossal amount of heat and light energy which we can use on Earth.

2. Helios. Or actually, Helios rode his chariot, the ball of fire, across the sky.

3. Approximately 13.6 Mega Kelvins

4. Photosphere

5. It is the thin layer of coloured gases just above the photosphere. For reasons unknown, it is hotter than the photosphere.

6. A total eclipse

7. Solar wind are currents of small charged particles, plasma, that waft off the surface of the sun.

8. Mercury

9. 4.5 billion years

10. Between 1959 and 1968 by the NASA’s Pioneer probes.


Part 2:

There are two main ways that a star could die. The life cycle of a star indicates that after the protostar, where it is just getting hotter; and the main sequence star, where it simply burns fuel (hydrogen), it will finally lose its fuel, hydrogen and become cooler and cooler until it turns red. It will also lose part of its gravitational force so the gases will expand, causing the star to become a Red Giant. In smaller stars, when there is not enough gravitational force to keep the gases close to the star, the gases float away and then, only a white dwarf remains. After the white dwarf burns out, it will be a black dwarf. This is what I think will happen to our Sun, because it is relatively small and it isn’t a hot star (as it isn’t blue, or white, it is yellow). Obviously, as the Main Sequence Star, the Sun, becomes a Red Giant, it will envelope the planets closest to it, including Earth. Also, before it does that, it will be getting closer and it would be too hot for life on Earth. This is because, although the sun is getting cooler, it is nowhere near cool enough to give us just the right amount of heat.

Other, bigger stars would explode in a supernova and become a dense piece of matter, a Neutron Star or a Black Hole.

Bonus



This image was taken on August 13th, 1995. It shows the surface of the sun, the photosphere and also the other marks around it, like the hotspots and the markings on the surface. It also shows a really big prominence that has been recorded, although the corona and the chromosphere are only slightly visible. The prominence is there because there is extra nuclear fusion activity going on in that area and the particles have extra energy. We would only see the corona and the chromosphere if we were lucky enough to see a total solar eclipse. It also shows how small the Earth is, compared to the Sun. The Earth is absolutely tiny, and is shown just inside the curve of the prominence. The diameter of the Sun is approximately 1.4 million km, compared to the tiny-ness of the Earth, which is only 12756 km. We can also see that the Sun is not quite a perfect sphere. It is so big that different areas rotate at different speeds.

Sources

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_wind

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun

http://homepages.ius.edu/mcreceli/mythology.htm

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Part 1:

1. Describe what exactly the sun is? Include what it is made of etc. (4)The sun is a star that was first made up of cold hydrogen gas and dust.Over time hydrogen fused into helium and created the core. In the sun other can be found such as helium, hydrodgen, carbon,Nitrogen,Iron, Neon, silicon, magnesium, and sulfer.
2. The Sun is personified in many mythologies. What did the Greeks personify it as? (2)It is where apollo, the God of the Sun came from and in the stories he rode a chariet of fire across the sky and those who challenged him suffered.
3. What is it believed that the inner core of the sun’ temperature is? (2)15,000,000 Celcius
4. What is the surface of the sun called? (2)photosphere
5. What is the chromosphere? (3)it is above the photosphere and is hotter than the photosphere. Also it is the layer in which the energy travels through to get out of the core.
6. When the moon comes directly in front of the sun and the earth, what is it called? (2)solar eclipse
7. What is solar wind? (4)charged particles and gas that flow as plasma from off of the sun
8. What is the nearest planet to the sun? (2)Mercury
9. How old is it believed that the sun is? (2)4.5 billion years old
10. When was the first image of the sun caught on satellite? (2)between the late 1950's and 1960's by Nasa


Part 2:

What do you believe will happen to the future of the sun? (at least 200 words)
As the years go by, I think the sun will keep growing bigger and bigger. There will be more changes in the future and when the sun starts to get bigger and bigger, the planet of Mercury will be in danger. As we know it, there isn't any life on it but we can not be 100% cuz what if there is and we don't know it and can't get to it in time? The sun's going to keep growning. It's going to expand and we're gonna feel the heat intensity on Earth before the sun turns into a red giant. And once we do, we're going to be in for a lot of trouble too. Already the sun is hotter and brighter today than it was a few years ago. The changes are happening slowly but noticeably ever 10 years or so. There is more worry now as we continue on through the years of having more hotter summers, sporadic weather changes and I bet that the storms are gonna get worse. It's kind of a scary thought but it's realistic and it's gonna happen. The sun seems immortal to us here on Earth, and we forget about things that are to come. However, the sun only has 5 billion more years to keep its brilliance of glow and shine but once its time is up, then so is ours. The moon will also feel its changes and who knows what sort of strange changes the sun will make to the remaining planets. Sadly, we'll lose Mercury. It's right beside the sun and it's really tiny.

Bonus

Post a picture of the sun and describe in no less than 150 words, what the picture shows
https://2img.net/r/ihimizer/img214/9500/sundiaglarge8pl.jpg

Okay, what you are seeing here, is the diagram of all the parts of the sun. You will notice that there are some light spots at the bottom of it. Those are short lived magnetic areas that no longer produce. Now, there is the photosphere at the top, oh and to the right you will see where it says 'Visible IR and UV radiations'. THAT is what we are able to feel of the sun, and why we must use sunblock. Okay now as you can see, the diagram shows the part cut away of the sun, so we can see the core. It is very very bright and intense and see there is where the nuclear reactions take place. Notice how the explosions go in a straight line pattern but as the explosion leaves the surface of the sun, the explosive parts kind of become more crooked. That's cuz the heat intensity isn't as much as when it is inside the core. Now moving over to the left side of the diagram, you will see first the Corona hole. And more to the left you see the radio emissions but then move down to the bottom left slowly. There is the Corona loops, those wavy little things. And now further down you see Radio Radiations and Energetic particles. You will also notice that you can see where the X and Y radiations are located.Oh back on the right side you can see Prominence, much larger than the Corona loops. The Prominence is a much larger eruption of hot gases as you see there is quite a big difference in the sizes. So, by looking at the sun, and being able to actually see all of these places, it's really amazing to think that this BIG monsterious star was nothing more than gas clouds zillions of years ago.


http://www.solarviews.com/eng/sun.htm
http://www-astronomy.mps.ohio-state.edu/~pogge/Lectures/vistas97.html

Part 1:

1. Describe what exactly the sun is? Include what it is made of etc. (4)

The sun is predominantly a star that is the source of light and heat for the planets in the solar system. It contains 99.85% of the mass in the solar system and it is mainly made up of hot gas. Most of this gas is hydrogen (about 70%) and helium (about 28%). Carbon, nitrogen and oxygen make up 1.5% and the other 0.5% is made up of small amounts of many other elements such as neon, iron, silicon, magnesium and sulfur.

2. The Sun is personified in many mythologies. What did the Greeks personify it as? (2)

The Greeks said that the sun was 'Helios riding his chariot, the ball of fire, across the sky'

3. What is it believed that the inner core of the sun’ temperature is? (2)

The suns inner core is believed to be 15 million kelvins (27 million degrees Fahrenheit)

4. What is the surface of the sun called? (2)

The surface is commonly known as the photosphere.

5. What is the chromosphere? (3)

It is an eclipse, a red circle, which can sometimes be seen around the outside of the sun

6. When the moon comes directly in front of the sun and the earth, what is it called? (2)

A Solar Eclypse

7. What is solar wind? (4)

The solar wind is a wind that streams off of the Sun in all directions at speeds of about 1 million miles per hour. The source of the solar wind is the Sun's hot corona.

8. What is the nearest planet to the sun? (2)

Murcury

9. How old is it believed that the sun is? (2)

The Sun is about 4 1/2 billion years old

10. When was the first image of the sun caught on satellite? (2)


Part 2:

What do you believe will happen to the future of the sun? (at least 200 words)

The suns constant burning and extreme heat will, in my opinion, eventually burn out into nothingness. I do not believe that this will be the end of the earth as there are many other stars that burn further away and with science today, there may be a way to preserve the earth, though it could push us into an ice age. There is also the possibility that the sun will go the other way and simply explode, causing an extreme supernova, which would eventually be the end of all life as we know it! It will be many years until this happens, though, and as I mentioned before, science is growing daily, as is our knowledge of this burning star, knowledge which one day could save the sun and the solar system. Also by this time, the earth race could have advanced as such to colonise other planets further away from the main sun with perhaps other suns of there own.

Bonus

Post a picture of the sun and describe in no less than 150 words, what the picture shows.

http://www.solarphysics.kva.se/NatureNov2002/images/NP1_Fig3_arrows_color.gif

This photo points out the dark filaments, or the sun spots, on the surface of the sun.
A sun spot is a slightly cooler region of the Sun's photosphere. They are caused by concentrations of magnetic flux, typically occurring in groups or clusters. The number of sunspots varies according to the Sun's 11 year cycle. More sunspots are seen at the Maxima of solar cycles, with few being observed during the Minima between.

sources

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&lr=&defl=en&q=define:sun&sa=X&oi=glossary_definition&ct=title
http://www.hao.ucar.edu/Public/education/basic.html
http://coolcosmos.ipac.caltech.edu/cosmic_kids/AskKids/suncomp.shtml

Part 1:

1. Describe what exactly the sun is? Include what it is made of etc. (4)

The sun is a typical star that is the source of light and heat for the planets in the solar system. The sun contains 99.85% of the mass in the solar system and is made from various gasses, the main one being hydrogen.

2. The Sun is personified in many mythologies. What did the Greeks personify it as? (2)

Helios is the young Greek god of the sun. At the end of each night his sister rises from her couch in the east and, mounted on a chariot pulled by the horses Lampus and Phaethon, she rides to Olympus to announce the approach of her brother, Helios. Once Helios appears Eos becomes Hemera (Day) and escorts him on his travels across the sky.

3. What is it believed that the inner core of the sun’ temperature is? (2)

27 million degrees Fahrenheit

4. What is the surface of the sun called? (2)

The Photosphere

5. What is the chromosphere? (3)

The lower level of the solar atmosphere between the photosphere and the corona.

6. When the moon comes directly in front of the sun and the earth, what is it called? (2)

Solar eclypse

7. What is solar wind? (4)

An outward flow of fast-moving charged particles from the Sun.

8. What is the nearest planet to the sun? (2)

Murcury

9. How old is it believed that the sun is? (2)

It is difficult to date the age of the sun exactly, though it is believed to be approximately 5 billion years old

10. When was the first image of the sun caught on satellite? (2)

(Can not find the answer)

Part 2:

What do you believe will happen to the future of the sun? (at least 200 words)

A matter like the sun is extremely powerful, yet all powerful things will eventually die out. If the sun dies out, so will our solar system as our solar system depends upon the heat of the sun.
I believe that eventually, the Sun will burn all of the hydrogen in its core causing the core to shrink under its own gravity. This will cause the sun to become much hotter and swell. I think that this will then cause it to swallow up the planets, the nearest first, (although this will take years). Even if the sun does not swallow the Earth, it will be made inhabitable as the heat of the expanding sun will boil the waters and blow the atmosphere away causing everyone to die.
I also think that while this is happening, the sun will produce much more solar winds which will eventually make the sun smaller and eventually vanishing like the planets.
This wont be the end though, not completely. The solar system had built itself before out of matter which floats in the universe, and gravity will eventually re-form a solar system.


Bonus

Post a picture of the sun and describe in no less than 150 words, what the picture shows.



This is a picture of the sun, or the solar corona, during the eclipse of third November1994. It is shown in a visible light from Chile in a high altitude observatory.


http://wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=sun
http://ancienthistory.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?zi=1/XJ&sdn=ancienthistory&zu=http%3A%2F%2Fthanasis.com%2Fhelios.htm
http://www.solarviews.com/eng/sun.htm
http://www.pgd.hawaii.edu/eschool/glossary.htm
http://astronomy.nju.edu.cn/astron/AT3/GLOSS_S.HTM
http://solar-center.stanford.edu/FAQ/Qage.html

Part 1:

1. Describe what exactly the sun is? Include what it is made of etc. (4)
The Sun is a normal main sequence G2 star, one of the 100 billion stars in our galaxy alone. It has a diameter of 1,390,000 km and a mass of 1.989e30 kg. It has a surface temperature of 5,000 K and its temperature is 15,600,000 K.

The Sun is the largest heavenly body in our solar system. It makes up about 99.8% of our solar system while Jupiter takes up most of the rest. The sun is (at present) about 70% hydrogen and 28% helium by mass everything else ("metals") amounts to less than 2%. The percetage changes over time since the Sun converts Hydrogen to Helium in it core.

2. The Sun is personified in many mythologies. What did the Greeks personify it as? (2)
In Greek Mythology, the Sun is personified as Helios.

3. What is it believed that the inner core of the sun’ temperature is? (2)
It is believed that the temperature of the SUn's inner core ranges up to 15.6 million Kelvin and with a pressure of 250 billion atmospheres.

4. What is the surface of the sun called? (2)
The surface of the sun is called the Photosphere which is about 5,800 K in temperature.

5. What is the chromosphere? (3)
The Chromosphere is a small region that lies above the Photosphere and below the corona.

6. When the moon comes directly in front of the sun and the earth, what is it called? (2)
The phenomenon is called a Solar Eclipse.

7. What is solar wind? (4)
It is a stream of low density charged particles (mostly made up of protons and electrons) that the sun emits which propagates around the Solar System at about 450 km/sec. When a solar wind reaches the Earth, it reacts with the our planet's magnetic and creates the beautiful occurence of the Aurora Borealis.

8. What is the nearest planet to the sun? (2)
The planet closest to the sun is Mercury with the distance of 57, 910 km.

9. How old is it believed that the sun is? (2)
The Sun is belived to be about 4.5 billion years old.

10. When was the first image of the sun caught on satellite? (2)
The very first images of the sun was caught in between the years 1959-1968 by NASA.

Part 2:

What do you believe will happen to the future of the sun? (at least 200 words)
The Sun, believed to being about 4.5 billion years old already has already used up about half of it's core hydrogen. It is believed that it will continue to live on for another 5 billion years or so. It is, however, also said that it's luminosity will approximately double in that span of time. As the sun grows old, it will expand. Then eventually, the sun will ran out of it's Hydrogen fuel and helium that will cause the core to contract while the outer layers will expand, cool, and become less bright. When this happen, the Sun will be a Red Giant Star.

As the Sun continues to die, the outer layers of the sun will continue to expand, the inner core will continue to contract and the helium will fuse together, creating carbon bonds and releasing energy. This phenomenon will stabilize the core as there is no more carbon atoms that are not compressible.

As the outer layers of the sun continue to expand, it will come to a point where it will just drift off into space creating a Planetary Nebula. Planetary Nebulae are shells of gas thrown out by some stars near the end of their lives. Most of the Sun's mass will go to the nebula as the remaining sun will continue to shrink and to cool until it will only be a few thousand miles in diameter.

Bonus

Post a picture of the sun and describe in no less than 150 words, what the picture shows.

This Photo was taken on January 19, 2005 when a group of Space Weather forecasters were observing solar and geomagnetic storms. The forecasters said (also evident in this picture) that a region of a the sun emerged as a single sunspot from a very large complex sunspot cluster during the days of observation. An occurence like this only happens about five years after the Solar Maximum in April 2000.

A lot of solar flares are visible in this photo of the sun too. The dark patches of the sun are called sunspots and as you can see, there is already a bigger spot on it which the astronomers referred to as the "sunspot" cluster. The brighter spots to the right of center are active regions known as plages. This picture doesn't have any indications of an eruptive prominence (or a very high solar flare) as you can see the flares are just low and close to the chromosphere.


[url]http://www.nineplanets.org/sol.html
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/astronomy/sun/sundeath.shtml
http://astro.nineplanets.org/twn/types.html[/url]
Yahoo images for the photo.

Part 1

1.The sun is a huge star. It is made up of a mahusive amount of burning gas.

2.Helius is the Greek sun God. He is personified as the Sun. He had to ride a chariot
across the sky to provide daylight.

3.27 million degrees Fahrenheit

4.The Photosphere

5.The chromosphere is a layer above the photosphere.

6.An eclipse

7.A stream of high-speed, ionised particles given out mainly from the sun's corona.

8.Mercury

9.4.5 × 109 years (4500000000 years)

10.Couldn’t find a date.

Part 2

All stars have a cycle. At the moment, our Sun is stable. The gas burning is Hydrogen gas. Eventually all this gas will burn up and the star will collapse, due to the gravitational force. Then the star will become unstable. A huge amount of radiation is emitted and the star expands. The sun is predicted to expand into the orbit of Mars, and becoming a red giant, but is also said to happen in 5 billion years time.

In my opinion this could happen, but we could have invented equipment that allows us to live on other planets, maybe other solar systems. Maybe the sun is just a huge light bulb and will need replacing when it goes out. Earth might even move out of this solar system and join another one (like in Earthsearch).

Our sun holds our solar system together. Without it, all the planets would go spiralling off into the universe and everything on those will float away. Could this be the fate of Earth and the end of all human like as we know it? I think we should stick out our thumbs to a passing vogon ship in 5 billion years time and hitch a lift to see Slartibartfast, so he can make us a new planet.

http://www.s-cool.co.uk/topic_quicklearn.asp?loc=ql&topic_id=9&quicklearn_id=5&subject_id=16&ebt=321&ebn=&ebs=&ebl=&elc=4
http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/chromos.htm