Mysteries and Miracles of our Sun

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The sun is the star at the center of the solar system and is the source of light and heat for planets like Earth. The sun has eight satellites that we call planets orbiting it: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. Without the sun, we wouldn’t be where we are today. Our star is the closest one to our planet so we are able to observe and study it and its solar phenomenon’s such as sunspots, solar flares, solar winds, and prominences.

The sun is 1,390,000 kilometers in diameter and weighs out to about 1.989e30 kilograms. Being 5,800 degrees Kelvin, the sun is so hot nothing can get close enough before it gets burned up. The suns’ core is 2700 times hotter than the surface being 15,600,000 degrees Kelvin and has the pressure of 250,000,000,000 atmospheres. It is made up of mostly hydrogen (70%) and helium (28%) with less than two percent being made up of metals but these percentages changes slowly over time as the Sun is continuously converting hydrogen to helium at its core.

The sun has multiple “layers.” The suns’ photosphere is the visible sun, which is what we see. It is one of the coolest regions of the sun being only 6,000 degrees Kelvin. It is 500 kilometers deep and the suns’ convection brings the energy up to the photosphere. The chromosphere is only seen during an eclipse and it looks like a thin pink line. For reasons unknown, the chromosphere is hotter than the photosphere and can range anywhere from 6,273 degrees Kelvin to 20,273 degrees Kelvin. At these high temperatures hydrogen emits a reddish color, which can clearly be seen in a prominence. The chromosphere contains spicules, which are flame like extensions of the chromosphere into the corona. The corona has a milky white glow during ...

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... the speed of light!

The sun has many mysteries that we still can not yet explain but it is still fascinating how we depend so much on it and without it we would not be alive today.

Works Cited

NASA/Marshall Solar Physics. Web. 28 Nov. 2011.

Seeds, Michael A., and Dana Backman. Foundations Of Astronomy. Brooks/Cole Pub Co, 2010. eBook

"Solar Flares." Web. 28 Nov. 2011.

"Solar Flares, Prominences, the Solar Wind, and Coronal Mass Ejections." Enchanted Learning. Web. 28 Nov. 2011.

"Solar Phenomenons: The Sun, Sunspots, and Current Sunspot Activity | Outer Space Universe." Outer Space Facts - Constellation Star Maps - Space Pictures | Outer Space Universe. Web. 28 Nov. 2011.

"Solar Prominence." Universe Today — Space and Astronomy News. Web. 28 Nov. 2011.

"The Sun L Sun Facts and Images." The Nine Planets Solar System Tour. Web. 28 Nov. 2011.

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