Sun

 

Our Sun is a star and the brightest object during the day. Below is an image which shows the layers of the Sun.

 

.....Our Sun is a star and the brightest object during the day. The Sun is around 870,000 miles (1.4 million Km) in diameter and over 100 times larger than the earth. The Sun's weight is 300,000 times heavier than the earth and works like a giant nuclear furnace. The Sun is so huge that it pulls hydrogen atoms together into its solar core where the hydrogen atoms change into helium and join into a nuclear fusion. The temperature of the core is an incredible 59 million °F (15 million °C). The energy produced slowly creeps out from the solar core producing the Sun's golden surface, the photosphere. Its high temperature, 10,000°F (5,700°C), and its density make it impossible to see through except during an eclipse. The Sun will still continue to generate light and heat for over 5,000 million years until all of the hydrogen will have vanished. The Sun will then turn into a red giant star.

Sunspots & Solar Flare

.....If you were able to look at the Sun with a telescope equiped with a solar filter, you would see darker areas of the Sun expanding and fading. Those fading and expanding areas are sunspots. Sunspots are cooler regions on the Sun with a temperature 7,200°F (4,000°C) less than the average temperature of the Sun. They may stretch over 60,000 miles and may increase or decrease over an 11-year cycle. Their average number may vary from cycle to cycle. Sunspots are triggered by strong magnetic forces, which pull at solar gases as a magnet pulls at iron.

.....Conditions on our planet are affected by the changing Sun, because the visible and ultraviolet light reaching us changes and because the amount of tiny atomic particles that the Sun blows out over the solar system changes. Superhot gas is able to escape the Sun's gravity, sometimes causing a solar flare. Solar flares are streams of energetic paricles injected into the solar wind at 600 miles per a second, 5,000 times faster than the speed of a jet. The heat of the solar flare is generated from the corona. The temperature of the corona is about 3.6 million °F (2 million °C). Once the blast reaches Earth the needle of a compass may flicker and nothern lights may glow. The effect is called an aurora borealis.

Eclipses

A solar eclipse is when the Moon passes in between the Sun and the Earth, blocking most of the light being cast from the Sun to the Earth. A solar eclipse is an extordinary event. It does not happen very often and it is the only time when we can see the Sun's outer layer, called the photosphere.
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