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Page 1 of 17
Our Sun
By Rex A. Crouch
 ©
16 April2005
 2005
 
Page 2 of 17
Abstract
This is a brief look at our Sun, its creation, its structure, function, and some of the internal andsurface characteristics of our star as well as recent developments in solar observations, and a fewof my own personal experiments as they related to the Sun.
Introduction.
Just less than 5 billion yearsago, in a spiraling arm of our Milky Waygalaxy, a cloud of gas, and dust began tocompressing under its own weight. Theparticles within the cloud's core became sodensely packed that they frequently collided,and fused together. The fusion processreleased tremendous amounts of heat, andlight which could then compete with theforce of gravity within the cloud. The twoforces eventually found an equilibriumpoint, and a star was born. This star inquestion is our Sun. All stars in our galaxyand other galaxies come in various sizes andcolors. All stars are relatively unique. Oursun is a medium sized star known as a
 yellow dwarf, or a G Class star on the Hertzsprung-Russel Diagram.
Our Sun,located just 149,598,000 km from Earth hasa radius of 696,000 km, a massof 
30
1.9891 10
 X kg
, and a surfacetemperature of about 5800 Kelvin. Our Sunis composed of (by mass), 74% hydrogen,25% helium, and 1% all other elements.Because hydrogen has very little mass, thecomposition of the Sun by number of atomswould be 92% hydrogen, 7.8% helium, and0.1% all other elements. The cloud fromwhich our Sun formed did not use all of itsgases and dust to make the Sun. Theleftover gases and dust were used to formthe planets of our solar system (HarvardScience Department, 2002).Our Sun has been fusing hydrogen intohelium and providing Earth with radiantenergy for about 4.5 billion years, and weexpected it to continue doing so for another4.5 billion years. Of course one day our Sunwill expend it hydrogen to the point that itcan no longer fight the force of gravity of itsdeveloping iron core. Gravity will thenbegin to compress the Sun under its ownweight; yet again but the fusion process ischanging as the Sun matures. Thecompression causes the new helium particlesinside of the core to collide hard enough thatthey can stick together and fuse. The corethen begins to fuse helium into carbon tocreate enough energy to maintain its balancewith the force of gravity it is quicklygrowing iron core. Creating carbon gives off more energy than did the making of helium.The energy being pumped out of the coreradiates through the outer layers of the sun.The introduction of too much energy intothe
sun’s
envelope heats up the envelopeparticles to the point that the envelopeexpands. The Sun's envelope will expandand engulf all of the inner solar system outto the radius of Mars. In the process the Sunwill drop in temperature; this change intemperature will be marked by a change incolor as the star becomes a red giant. Oursun will continue to live like this for maybeanother billion years before pulsating andexploding into a planetary nebula probablyleaving a white dwarf at the center
.That is the life and death of our Sun in anutshell.
Sun’s S
tructure.
The structure of the Sunis like looking at a fascinating piece of machinery except is has no tangible movingparts. In the below image developed by theSOHO Project Team, we begin with the
 
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Sun’s Core
where nuclear fusion thatproduces the heat and light we experiencehere on Earth occurs. Next we find theRadiation Zone followed by the ConvectionZone. The Photosphere, which is what wetypically see in one of the lower layers of 
the Sun’s atmosphere
is the next layer. Wenext find the Chromosphere which is areddish orange layer thousands of kilometersthick. Lastly we find the Corona which isthe upper most layer of atmosphere on theSun; this layer extends millions of kilometers thick. Other aspects depicted inthe below image are a prominence, and flarewhich will be discussed in more detail later.
SOHO Project
Sun’s Rotation.
 
―T
he Sun is not actually asolid body.
‖
Subsequently its rotationalperiod is not well defined. To imagine asphere of water suspended and spinningabout on an axis system; water would tendto spin faster in some placed than in others.The modern measurements the Sun rotatesonce about every 25 days near its equator,28 days at 40 degrees latitude, and 36 daysnear the poles. The rotation is the same asthat of the planets which is sometimesreferred to as direct (University of Tennessee Astrophysics Department, 2005).
Fusion Process.
 As mentioned in the introduction, the Sun iscomposed of predominantly hydrogen, thenhelium, and a small percent of all otherelements. The fusion process, as mentioned,
occurs at the Sun’s core
where thetemperature is believed to be about 15million °C and the pressure of gravity canalter the nuclear bonds of atoms. Because of the extreme heat and gravity on the Sun thefusion process is more complex than theprocess here on Earth in that the fusionprocess is a step-by-step process called aproton-proton chain. In this fusion processtwo atoms of hydrogen are combined tocreate what is called helium-4 and energy.This occurs in several steps:
The pressure at the Sun’s core forces t
wohydrogen protons to combine to form adeuterium. Deuterium is one hydrogen atomwith one neutron, one positron, and a singleneutrino. Heat is beginning in this step.A proton and a deuterium atom combine toform a helium-3 atom. A helium-3 is thecombination of two protons with oneneutron, and a single photon of gamma ray. Lastly, two of these helium-3 atoms joinunder pressure to form a helium-4. Thisconsists of two protons, two neutrons, andtwo protons.This three step process accounts for about85 percent of the sun's energy. Theremaining 15 percent comes from thefollowing reactions:A helium-3 and a helium-4 combine to forma beryllium-7 which is not the most stableform of beryllium. This consists of fourprotons and three neutrons, and a gammaray.A beryllium-7, because of its positivenature, captures an electron to becomelithium-7. Lithium-7 consists of threeprotons and four neutrons, and one neutrino.
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