Facts about the Sun

The sun is the biggest and only star in our solar system, and is considered small for a star, even though it is one million miles across the surface. In fact, one million earths can fit into the sun, which is 93 million miles away.

The sun is made up of hydrogen and helium, super-heated into plasma. This source of heat and energy has a surface of 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit. 380 billion, billion megawatts of power is generated from the sun in one second. During this second, the sun exposes more energy than has been used in all of human civilization. At the core of the sun is a much higher temperature: 27 million degrees fahrenheit

Nuclear fusion is what heats the sun. Hydrogen and helium are fused together which creates energy. The sun has been sustaining life on earth for billions of years.

The energy created by fusion are carried to earth by flotrons. Radiated zone then conductive zone and 10 days later it emerges through the solar atmosphere, then off to earth. Hundreds of thousands or even millions of years has been in existence by the time it reaches earth.

The sun is believed to have begun from the ashes from a super nova, which is a cloud of gas. We are 93 billion miles away from the sun and thousands of explosions occur on our sun each year. They come from magnetism.

Solar violence is created by this magnetism. The earth has 2 magnetic fields, north pole and south pole, but the sun has 1-10 million poles tangled in a web held together as one by gravity fields. Plasma on the surface of the sun causes pull in many different areas and does not provide consistent movement. This is called Differential Rotation. The plasma is also carrying free magnetic energy and eventually it must be released. These field lines become twisted up and as this stored energy is released it gets flung off the face of the sun.

Sun spots are blemishes, or areas that are cooled up to one thousand degrees- and are actually plasma craters. The sun rotates, and sun spots rotate also, similar to hurricanes. The more they spin, the more energy that builds up and needs to release. This amount of pressure determines how explosive the sun becomes. Solar flares are the releasing of this energy. One million tons of energy is released, which would be similar to one million volcanic eruptions on earth. The temperature is about 10 million degrees which is similar to millions of nuclear bombs. These flares can last for hours. The solar flares explode into space, and send energy into the sun also. If a large flare sends enough energy particles at once, it will appear like ripples in water. In fact, a flair can kick off a solar tsunami, which spreads around the face of the sun in a matter of a few hours.

Coronal mass ejections or solar storms. 93 millions miles of space, some go as fast as 6 million miles per hour. Can knock out satellites on the earth's atmosphere. The NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) watches the sunspace solar storms that may impact earth. These can be dangerous to the earth- but our atmosphere protects us. Most dangerous threat. Also called solar storms. Take several days usually, but some can go 6 million mph, reaching here in less than 16 hours. Can knock out our infrastructure of communication.

Solar storms make beautiful light shows. Aurora works like neon signs on a large scale. The aurora is driven by the energetic field from the sun, glowing. Oxygen molecules are green, nitrogen shows purples, or pinks.

Much of the violence of the sun erupts in the corona,the exterior, which burns at millions of degrees. Below the corona, the surface of the sun is literally boiling. Convection cells the size of Texas rise to the surface, and then cool and sink back down again in the time span of minutes. It is extremely loud. The only time the corona can be seen is during an eclipse, which happens about every year and half.

The sun has a fixed amount of fuel at its core, and at some point the sun will die, in about 5 billion years. It will not be a huge bang, but the outer layers will become so unstable that they will eventually fly off. As the sun cools, it actually heats up (figure that one out), then it will crush under gravity. Once the outer layers fly into space and then leave a small core about the size of the earth. It will become a slowly burning cinder and human life will cease to exist that that point.

Information from “The Universe: Secrets of the Sun”