Overview of the Sun in our Solar System
. Our sun gives valuable energy to us. The Earth has living thing because of the sun light. The sun radiates heat in the form of light and it takes only The Sun is our home star 8 minutes to reach on Earth, but it can takes 100000 years to transfer energy from Sun’s core to the Sun’s surface and emerge as light. The process of transferring energy from Sun’s Core to the surface of Sun is slower because the energy absorbed by trillions of atoms is reemitted again and again. This energy passes through the dense radiative zone.
The energy emitted by Sun is from the nuclear fusion reaction which takes place in core. In the core the specific type of nuclear fusion reaction occurs is known as proton-proton fusion. These protons are nothing but the hydrogen nucleus. The protons (hydrogen nucleus) fuse together through series and different steps to form the helium. This reaction process generates massive amounts of heat energy and keeps sun hot.
Now the question arises that How old is the sun? what is the sun made of? At first we discuss about the age of our sun, our home star sun is about 4.6 billion years old approximately and in another 10 billion years will reach the end of its life and is the life of our solar system. Our sun is halfway (middle aged) through its stable lifetime. That means sun burnt its half of its fuel (hydrogen). Now we discuss about what is the sun made of, sun is a ball of gas. According to number of atoms, it is made of 91% hydrogen and 8.9% helium. And according to mass 70.6% hydrogen and 27.4% helium, mainly there are six layers of sun the core, radiative zone, convective zone, photosphere, chromosphere and corona.
in which nuclear fusion reaction takes place that is every second 620 million tonnes of hydrogen atoms fused to form helium. Only in the core nuclear fusion reaction takes place. The radius of core is 150000 km.
The Radiative zone is the second layer of sun. In this zone the primarily energy is transported from the core by thermal conduction and the energy is transferred in the form of electromagnetic radiation (photons). The thickness of radiative zone is 300000 km.
The Convection zone is the third layer of sun. The thickness of convection zone layer is 200000 km. In this zone, the energy is transported by convection. The light (photons) is created on the surface of convection zone. Convection zone transfers energy towards surface of sun (photosphere). Convection is nothing but the transporting energy from one place to another place by the motion of hot gas or liquid.
The Photosphere is the outer most layer of the Sun from where the light (photons) is escapes into the space. The temperature of photosphere is much cooler than core of the Sun, temperature of photosphere is 10 million degree. The photosphere is visible surface of the sun. The photosphere is 100 km thick and is made up of convection cell known as granules; cells of plasma each of them are 1000 km in diameter. Granules are hot rising plasma in the center and cooler plasma pull down in the narrow part between them, and the velocity of flowing at 7 km per second.
The Chromosphere is the inner atmosphere of sun. The Chromosphere is reddish color and glowing layer of gas which is above the surface (photosphere) of the sun. The chromosphere is between photosphere and corona. The name chromosphere is because of its bright reddish color. According to Greek root chroma, for it appears bright reddish color. The chromosphere has low density due to this the layer is transparent, because of this transparency nature of chromosphere resulting in the photosphere become the visible surface of the sun. The chromosphere is thin layer and about 2000 to 3000 km thick. The temperature of this layer is about 6000 to 50000 degree Celsius. The temperature increases from starting of chromosphere up to its end and still increasing. It is because of the magnetic field of sun. The magneto hydrodynamic waves are responsible for increasing temperature of sun’s chromosphere layer.
The corona of sun is outer layer of sun with very low density and it not visible due to the sun’s brightness. It can be only seen with the special instruments or during total solar eclipse. The shape and size of corona is varies due to the effect of sun magnetic field. The corona is much hotter than its surface because of tiny nanoflares which are continuously emits each with a mass around billion tonnes and this emission is observed three times a day. This is called ascoronal mass ejections. The flares from the sun sometimes collide with Earth which results into Auroras at the polar skies. Now the question arises as what causes of solar flares, the magnetic energy is buildup on sun and suddenly released this known as Solar Flares. The energy released by solar flares is transferred in entire solar system. If the enormous Solar Flare hit the Earth, results in to electric grid failure, knock out the satellite communications and the internet and if the massive solar flare hits the Earth, it can destroy earth’s atmosphere and results in to human extinction. Near the solar spot due to the crossing or reorganizing of magnetic field lines sudden explosion occurs called as solar flares.
Now what are the Sunspots? The sunspots are darker part of the photosphere. The sunspot is darker because of reduction temperature which is due to the concentrations of magnetic flux. Solar spots appears is pairs of opposite charged parts on the photosphere.
Now the question arises as does the sun rotates around itself? Answer is yes but in a different way. The sun is ball of gas so during the rotation the different place rotates on different speeds. The Sun takes 25 days to complete one rotation on its equator. And Sun takes 34 days at the polar region. This rotation difference is observed because of the motion of Sunspots.
Our Home Star Sun has very interesting facts, where I said few facts of them. If you want me to explain more information about Our Sun, our planets and any other galaxy, stars, solar system, planets then please comment me, I definitely work on your comments.
Originally published at https://solarsystemsinfo.blogspot.com on December 15, 2020.
