Mysteries and Miracles of our Sun

1403 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Plants photosynthesis

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 ...

... middle of paper ...

... 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.

Show More
Related

  • Fire in Hinduism, Christianity, and Judaism

    502 Words  | 2 Pages

    sun as a principle of heat and light for the earth is a symbol of the

    Read More

  • The Present State Of Neutrino Masses

    849 Words  | 2 Pages

    There can be several solutions to the puzzle. One is that we do not understand the Sun well enough.

    Read More

  • Sunspots

    1093 Words  | 3 Pages

    Our Sun continuously converts hydrogen into helium and with this process it provides the essentials for life processes. In doing this it controls “our climate, provides light, raises tides, and drives the food chain” (Schaefer 34). Our Sun also has influenced many beliefs now and in the past. History has documented Sun worshipping religions while many current societies use solar calendars (Schaefer 34).

    Read More

  • The Process of The Life Cycle of A Star

    968 Words  | 2 Pages

    "The Life and Death of Stars." National Aeronautics and Space Administration. 16 Apr. 2010. Web. 2 Dec. 2013. .

    Read More

  • Pluto: A Planet?

    1670 Words  | 4 Pages

    Research News Planetary Scientists are Seeing the Unseeable Richard A. Kerr Science, New Series, Vol. 235, No. 2 -. 4784. The. Jan. 2, 1987, pp. 113-117. 29-31. The 'Standard' of the 'Standard'. Stable URL:

    Read More

  • Stars

    641 Words  | 2 Pages

    Star, large celestial body composed of gravitationally contained hot gases emitting electromagnetic radiation, especially light, as a result of nuclear reactions inside the star. The sun is a star. With the sole exception of the sun, the stars appear to be fixed, maintaining the same pattern in the skies year after year. In fact the stars are in rapid motion, but their distances are so great that their relative changes in position become apparent only over the centuries.

    Read More

  • The Life Cycle of a Star

    748 Words  | 2 Pages

    Our Sun is a perfect example of a star, and there is an incredible amount of stars in the Universe. It is a star among hundreds of billions of stars within our Milky Way Galaxy, and our galaxy is one of billions of galaxies in the universe. Stars live for a very long time; millions, billions, or tens of billions of years so we can never really observe the life of a star; its birth, life, and death. In determining the life cycle of a star, astronomers observe many of the billions of stars around us and see them at different stages of life, therefore piecing together a star's evolution.

    Read More

  • Fossil Fuels vs. Renewable Energy

    1889 Words  | 4 Pages

    Smil, Vaclav. "The Long Slow Rise Of Solar And Wind." Scientific American 310.1 (2014): 52-57. Academic Search Complete. Web. 16 May 2014.

    Read More

  • The History of Solar Energy

    2230 Words  | 5 Pages

    I find that I am very attracted to the idea of renewable resources, and what us on Earth have been able to find out about the Sun over the course of history. Therefore, I determined that for my personal project, I would find a way to discuss and elaborate on not only how modern humans nowadays use the Sun for luxurious reasons, but also on a more simple scale, such as heating, survival, and the such. I also determined that the best way to show how far humankind has come with researching renewable resources was to go into history, and study how the history of the research have encouraged us to research further, leading to newer, more interesting discoveries throughout the years.

    Read More

  • The Sun Research Paper

    942 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Sun is a star, just like the other ones humans can see in the atmosphere at night. The Sun is actually much closer. In fact, our Sun is a somewhat traditional star, it is not too big or too small, it isn’t even that young or really old. Just an ordinary star. However, as a result of the Sun being so close to Earth, Astronomers believe the Sun is the star we can easily study. The Sun contains some basic elements that can be found on Earth. The Sun is estimated at 92% hydrogen and 8% helium.

    Read More

  • Solar System Research Paper

    722 Words  | 2 Pages

    Our Solar System is a wonderful place, with its profuse planets big and small, giant icy wastelands and tiny volcanic planets. It is the only place known to have a planet to have a planet that supports life. The Sun, two asteroid belts, eight planets, and five dwarf planets make this place truly awesome.

    Read More

  • Solar Physics

    1517 Words  | 4 Pages

    The star we call the Sun has a number of small objects circling around it. Many other stars in our Galaxy have objects orbiting them too and astronomers have recently discovered a few of these other systems already. The largest members of the Sun's family are called planets, and one of these we call home. That planet, Earth, has many unique characteristics that enable life to exist on it. What are the other planets like? We have learned more about our solar system in the past few decades than probably any other field of astronomy. The planets are no longer just objects up in our sky, but places we have been and explored---worlds in their own right. To give an adequate coverage of each of the planets would fill up a whole book (or more)! Since this web site is an introduction to all of astronomy, I will not explore each planet individually. Instead, I will focus on the common characteristics of the planets such as their Distance relative to us, mass, size and etc.

    Read More

  • Mercury's Solar System

    648 Words  | 2 Pages

    Our solar system has eight planets, their moons and satellites, and they are all orbiting the Sun. The eight planets are Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. Pluto used to be the ninth planet but IAU changed the definition of planet and Pluto did not meet the standards so it is now a Dwarf planet.

    Read More

  • The Sun: The Importance Of The Sun On Earth

    1070 Words  | 3 Pages

    Hopefully we all know how important the Sun is to us. However, some often forget why that is. The Sun is the star at the center of the solar system and is the most important star for the living and non-living organisms on Earth do to the fact that it provides the light energy and the heat needed to support life. Without the heat and light that it provides, the Earth would be lifeless and a ball of ice. The sun was created in a vast cloud of gas and dust over five billion years ago. . Over a period of many millions of years, this gas and dust began to fall into a common center under the force of its own gravity. At the center, an ever growing body of mass was forming. As the matter fell inward, it generated a tremendous amount of heat and pressure.

    Read More

  • The Tones The Sun Rising and To His Coy Mistress

    698 Words  | 2 Pages

    the reader think about how mighty the sun is and what it does to us

    Read More

More about Mysteries and Miracles of our Sun

Open Document