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To find out more about how stars are formed visit A Star's Life. The sun is an average star, sitting at about the middle of the HR-Diagram. Its surface temperature is around 6000 degrees Kelvin, giving it a yellow appearance. It is a relatively low-mass star, expected to live for around ten billion years or so. Fortunately, for us, the sun has only been around for about four and a half billion years. So, we have plenty of time (probably about another four and a half billion years) before our sun starts dying on us. Even then, since it is a low-mass star, we won't have to see what it is like to experience a supernova from close range. Our sun will only dwindle down to a white dwarf. Without the sun, there would not be life as we know of on our planet. Plants have found a wonderful way of taking the energy from the sun and turning it into energy our bodies can use.
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Additional Images
Since then, it has been
determined that the sunspots follow a cycle and have a strong impact on the
Earth. It is now known that sunspots occur in 11 year cycles. Every 11 years
there is a flurry of sunspot activity followed by 11 years of relative quiet.
Sunspots are also linked closely with solar flares and coronal mass ejections,
both of which have a profound impact on the Earth. The levels of electromagnetic
radiation that reach the Earth can cause electrical equipment to go haywire.
Even before the advent of electricity, the results of sunspots were noticed.
It can be seen in the growth of trees as well as our weather. Every 11 years
the space between a tree's rings, a measurement of how healthy an environment
the tree grew in that year, varies considerably. Between 1645 and 1715 it
appears that sunspot activity stopped. No one is quite sure why. What is known,
however, is that between those dates, Europe experienced what is known as
the Little Ice Age. We are still trying to figure out exactly what affect
sunspots may have on our planet.
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You can easily see this when you have been out in the sun too long and your skin burns. This is a result of overexposure to ultraviolet radiation. Fortunately, our atmosphere protects us from these forms of radiation. The sun's energy is a result of the nuclear reactions in its core. The energy travels from the core through the radiative zone. From there it enters the convective zone. The convective zone can best be thought of as a pot of boiling water. The energy from the sun "boils" up through the convective zone and is released through the outer layers of the sun. Another interesting
feature of our sun is sunspots. Sunspots are most likely the result
of complex magnetic reactions on the surface of the sun. These spots
can be seen on Earth as visibly darker regions on the sun's surface.
Galileo first noticed sunspots back in the early 1600's. |
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Through photosynthesis, plants convert Carbon Dioxide and water into sugar, with sunlight providing the energy for this reaction. Without plants producing sugar like this, the entire food chain would collapse. It is believed the dinosaurs suffered extinction when a large asteroid impacted the planet millions of years ago and the dust from the impact blocked out the sun for years. The plants were the first to die because they no longer had energy to perform the chemical reactions they needed for food. Then, the animals that ate the plants died, and after them, the animals that ate those animals, etc. The sun may be
the primary source of energy for life on our planet but it is equally
dangerous to that life. All of the sun's energy is in the form of electromagnetic
radiation. This includes radio waves, infrared, visible light, ultraviolet,
x-rays, and gamma rays. |
