THE SUN

BASIC FACTS ON THE SUN

 The sun is a star. A star does not have a solid surface.
 The sun is the center of our solar system and makes up 99.8% of the mass of the
entire solar system.
 Since the sun is not a solid body, different parts of the sun rotate at different
rates.
Notes:
1. It is a ball of gas (92.1 percent hydrogen (H2) and 7.8 percent helium (He)
held together by its own gravity.
2. About one million Earths could fit inside the sun.
3. At the equator, the sun spins once about every 25 Earth days, but at its poles
the sun rotates once on its axis every 36 days.

 The sun is orbited by eight planets, at least five dwarf planets (Pluto, Eris, Ceres,
Haumea, Make-make), tens of thousands of asteroids, and hundreds of
thousands to three trillion comets and icy bodies.
 Without the sun's intense energy there would be no life on Earth.

 The sun is the closest star to Earth, at a mean distance from our planet.
Note: The distance is 149.60 million kilometers (92.96 million miles) and 1 AU

 The connection and interactions between the sun and Earth drive the seasons,
ocean currents, weather and climate.

FORMATION AND EVOLUTION

 The sun was born about 4.6 billion years ago.
 The sun has enough nuclear fuel to stay much as it is now for another 5 billion
years.
Note:
> Many scientists think the sun and the rest of the solar system formed from
a giant, rotating cloud of gas and dust known as the solar nebula. As the nebula
collapsed because of its gravity, it spun faster and flattened into a disk. Most of the
material was pulled toward the center to form the sun.

CHEMICAL COMPOSITION
 72%- Hydrogen Note:
 26%- Helium The sun is relatively young, part of a generation of
 2%- Oxygen stars known as Population I, which are relatively
- Carbon rich in elements heavier than helium. An older
- Neon generation of stars is called Population II, and an
- Nitrogen earlier generation of Population III may have
- Magnesium existed, although no members of this generation
- Iron are known yet.
- Silicon

PARTS OF THE SUN

 Sun’s Interior
 Core
 Radiation Zone
 Convection Zone
 Sun’s Atmosphere
 Photosphere
 Chromosphere
 Corona

Astronomy THE SUN | 1 kjz2019

 PARTS OF THE SUN- CORE
 It is the center of the sun.
 At the core, the temperature is about 15 million
degrees Celsius (about 27 million degrees
Fahrenheit), which is sufficient to sustain
thermonuclear fusion. The energy produced in the
core powers the sun and produces essentially all
the heat and light we receive on Earth.

PARTS OF THE SUN- RADIATIVE ZONE

 Middle Layer of the sun’s interior.
 Region of tightly packed gas where the energy
that is being created in the core is transferred
trough radiation.

PARTS OF THE SUN- CONVECTIVE ZONE

 Outermost layer of the sun’s interior.
 The energy transfer is convection.
 The temperature drops below 2 million degrees Celsius in the convective zone.
Notes:
> Hot gases rises and cooler gases sink.
>It will take 170 000 years to get from the core to
the convective zone.

LAYERS OF SUN’S ATMOSPHERE

PARTS OF THE SUN- PHOTOSPHERE
 Is a 500-kilometer-thick region, from which most of
the sun's radiation escapes outward and is
detected as the sunlight we observe here on
Earth.

PARTS OF THE SUN- CHROMOSPHERE

 The chromosphere emits a reddish glow as super-
heated hydrogen burns off.
Notes:
> Visible light from these top regions is usually too
weak to be seen against the brighter photosphere,
but during total solar eclipses, when the Moon covers
the photosphere, the chromosphere can be seen as
a red rim around the sun while the corona forms a beautiful white crown with
plasma streaming outward, forming the points of the crown.

PARTS OF THE SUN- CORONA

 It appears as white streamers or plumes of ionized gas that flow
outward into space. Temperatures in the sun's corona can get as
high as 3.5 million degrees F (2 million degrees C).
Note: It can only be seen during a total solar eclipse as well.

FEATURES OF THE SUN

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FEATURES OF THE SUN- SUNSPOT
 Sunspots – areas of concentrated magnetic field lines.
 Sunspots have two regions: the inner, darker umbra and the outer penumbra.
Note: Sunspots can be used to determine the rate of the sun’s rotation.

FEATURES OF THE SUN- SOLAR FLARES

 SOLAR FLARES are sudden, bright outbursts of energy that happen as the Sun’s
magnetic fields twist, tear and reconnect.
Notes:
 Just Recent- May 2015, an X Solar Flare Occurred.
 Flares are the most violent eruptions in the solar system

FEATURES OF THE SUN- PROMINENCES

 PROMINENCES- Giant arches of gas that erupt on the Sun. (It can last for days.)

FEATURES OF THE SUN- CORONAL MASS EJECTIONS

 CORONAL MASS EJECTIONS coming from the Sun have the most energy
of all these solar events.
Notes:
 Sometimes they head toward the Earth where they can cause communications
disruptions and damage satellites.
 Less violent but involve extraordinary amounts of matter — a single ejection can
spout roughly 20 billion tons (18 billion metric tons) of matter into space.
SOLAR WIND
 Stream of electrically charged particles. (As the gases cool, they become the
solar wind.)

TIMELINE OF EVENTS IN THE SUN

 1610: First observations of sunspots through a telescope made independently by
Galileo Galilei and Thomas Harriot.
 1645 to 1715: Sunspot activity declines to almost zero, possibly causing a Little Ice
Age on Earth
 1860: Eclipse observers see a massive burst of material from the sun; it is the first
recorded coronal mass ejections
 1994: The Ulysses spacecraft makes the first observations of the sun's polar
regions.
 2004: NASA's Genesis spacecraft returns samples of the solar wind to Earth for
study.
 2006: Ulysses begins its third set of data-gathering passes over the north and
south poles of the sun.
 2007: NASA's double-spacecraft Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO)
mission returns the first three-dimensional images of the sun.
 2009: After more than 18 years, the Ulysses mission ends. Ulysses was the first and
only spacecraft to study the sun at high solar latitudes.
 2010: SDO is launched and begins observing the sun in super-high definition.
 2011: The STEREO spacecraft, from their dual perspective, see the entire sun for
the first time.

OBSERVATORIES THAT STUDIES SUN

 SOHO - Solar and Heliospheric Observatory
 TRACE - Transition Region and Coronal Explorer
 STEREO - Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory
 SDO - Solar Dynamics Observatory

Astronomy THE SUN | 3 kjz2019