MARCH 17TH LECTURE

- Colours of the Sun and Northern Lights

Sun’s Atmosphere:

1. Photosphere
2. Chromasphere
3. Corona

- Solid is Gas
- Lots of heat
- Is a star and creates its own energy
- Deep in the sun is the sun and it creates energy – it travels to the surface.

Photosphere:

- Outer layer of sun from which radiation escapes

- Photosphere is hot glowing surface
- Radiates energy at 5800K
- Needs source of energy from interior (nuclear reactions)
- Looks like a smooth layer of gas market by dark sunspots

Stars:

- Come in a range of colours

- Due to the temp of the star
- Stars create their own energy
- Stars are incandescent
- Heated to the point of GLOWING

Properties of incandescent sources:

- Emit all wavelengths of light
- Produced when a source is heated to the point of glowing
- Produce continuous spectra

- Some sources, when heated to the point of glowing, produce a spectrum that only
depends on their temperature called blackbodies

- OBJECTS GET BRIGHTER AS THEY HEAT

- OBJECTS CHANGE COLOUR AS THEY ARE HEATED

KELVIN SCALE (0 DEGREES KELVIN = -273 DEGREES CELSIUS)

Sun is yellow because it has a blackbody surface temp of 5800K

Chromosphere:

- Lies above photosphere to approx. 2000-3000km height irregular

- Chromosphere Not very visible with human eye
- Visible during solar eclipse
- Otherwise light drom photosphere surface overpowers it
- Appears pink, a type of luminescent emission
- Energy mechanism not fully known
- Electrons in hydrogen atoms jump to higher energy levels
- When e- drop from 3rd to 2nd level of hydrogen, the red photon emitted at 656nm
- Produces reddish light of chromosphere

Solar eclipse:
- Moon blocks Sun’s light
- We can see the faint chromosphere

Corona:
- Outermost part of atmosphere – also visible during solar eclipse
- Extremely hot – 1 million kelvin
- Follows magnetic field of sun
- Several complex processes create light emitted by corona

Sun is not static

- Sunspots: visible traces of the sun’s magnetic field
- Darb b/c they are cooler than photosphere
- Surface is 5800K
- Sunspot: 4000K
o Cooler
o Less bright
o Appears dark in comparison to hotter photosphere picture

Besides radiation, the sun also emits a stream of charged particles, called a solar wind
- Arrows show a representation for the solar wind
- The solar wind is made of solar particles
- The solar wind is made of charged particles: protons, neutrons, electrons, some helium
nuclei
- The rate that the solar wind slows seems to be correlated with the sunspot activity:
o More sunspots: more extreme solar wind
o More frequent prominences, solar flares etc
- When the sun is active, this shows many sunspots, images taken in ultraviolet x-rays
which show coronal holes
- The solar wind is though to follow through the coronal holes
 o More sunspots = more coronal holes and more solar wind

Earth
- Is a giant magnet surrounded by invisible magnetic field lines. The magnet’s pull is
strongest at the poles.
- The magnetic field is shaped by interactions by the sun – solar wind particles get
trapped by the earth’s magnetic field
- Charged solar wind particles are captured by Earth’s magnetic field
- They spiral along field lines and collide with molecules in the Earth’s atmosphere

Aurora:
- Luminescent
- Transfer kinetic energy from moving charged solar wind particle
- Collides with molecule in our atmosphere
- Electron in molecule jumps to higher level
- When electron drops to lower energy level: molecules emits a photon
- We see a collection of these photons as the glow of Aurora

Aurora Colours:
- Depend on height in atmosphere
- Above 300km – atomic oxygen is most common: red aurora
- 100-300km – oxygen produces green emission
o Blue emission from ionized nitrogen molecules combines greenish-white light
- 100km – nitrogen molecules produce a red light that often seems to form the lower
fringes on auroral curtains

STEVE:
- Aka Strong thermal emissions velocity enhancement
- Often called by band of green emission (picket fence)
- NOT an aurora
- Not produced by solar wind particles
- Instead by past moving charged particles within our atmosphere (ionosphere)
- Friction between the charges particles and components in our atmosphere in our
heating atmosphere cause heating then a glow
- Incandescent rather than luminescent
- Green picket fence emission is auroral – caused by collisions with solar wind particles