The Fair Sun

The Sun
The sun, it’s hard to imagine life without it-probably because life wouldn’t exist without it!

Obviously, the sun is the largest object in our whole solar system. In fact, it is 98% percent of its (the solar systems) mass. Compared to the sun, our own planet of Earth is extremely small, in fact, 1.3 million of the Earth.

The sun, like the Earth, however, has many layers. The outermost visible layer is called the “photosphere” and can get to 11,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

The innermost layer or the “core” is where solar energy is generated. In the core, it gets so hot that nuclear reactions take place. During a reaction, protons/hydrogen nuclei combine to create an alpha particle/helium nucleus. This particle will be .4 times less than the four protons that blended together to make it. Now you may wonder-where does all of that extra mass go? Well, heat transfer, my dear Watson. There are three types of heat transfer-but the method that the excess mass is forced out with is called convection.

Convection is the transfer of heat through fluids, and the extra mass is expelled as energy, which is then converted to heat and light-and it then reaches the Earth. But don’t think that this process is a short one-it can take up to one million years for the light and heat to reach the surface of Earth.

Speaking of light, did you know the sun is also getting lighter? That’s right. Each second 700 million tons of light are changed into helium “ashes”. In this process 5 million tons of pure energy is released through convection, the light traveling to Earth-and thus the Sun gets brighter.

Upon average, the core can get up to 27,000,000 degrees Fahrenheit and the pressure tends to be 340 billion times heavier than the sea-level pressure of Earth.

Above the photosphere is the chromosphere. The energy that is expelled from the core and sent to the Earth passes through here. Inside the chromosphere there are faculae, flares and sunspots. Faculae are made of hydrogen and are bright clouds that appear over the places where sunspots will soon show up. From the sun spot areas surfaces bright filaments made up of hot gas. These are the flares. The dark depressions in the chromosphere are the “sun spots”.

The outermost part of the sun’s atmosphere is the “corona”, which is Latin for “crown”. It is called this due to the fact that you can only see this particular part of the sun’s atmosphere during a solar eclipse. During which, you see a reddish “crown-like” ring. In the corona you will see eruptions of radiant gases that become giant clouds. These gigantic gas clouds are called “prominences”. The corona has more than one layer, and it’s the part that is farthest outward continues out into space.

So far, the sun has been around for about 4.6 billion years. Scientists have estimated that it will able to keep “burning on” for maybe 5 billion years. When the end of that time is up, the Sun shall begin converting helium into heavier elements. As a result of this, it will begin to swell larger and larger-until it swallows the Earth. For the next billion years, the sun will be a “red giant” and then collapse into a “white dwarf”. These are both stages of a star’s life-which is what the sun is, a star. It will begin to cool-but that could take about a trillion years.

For now, it seems, the Sun is here to say.

http://www.solarviews.com/eng/sun.htm

Fascinating, Ginny - 50 points.