Sun Overview: Structure, Solar Phenomena, and Impact | Studento
The Sun
Sun Overview: Structure, Solar Phenomena, and Impact
The Sun is a star made up of extremely hot gases, primarily hydrogen (70%), helium (26.5%), and other gases (3.5%).
It is 109 times bigger than Earth, weighs 2 × 1027 tonnes, and accounts for 99.83% of the mass of the solar system.
The Sun is 150 million km away from Earth, and sunlight takes 8 minutes to reach Earth's surface.
The Sun's immense gravitational pull keeps the planets fixed in their orbits, revolving around it.
It continuously emits energy in the form of visible light, infrared, ultraviolet, X-rays, gamma rays, radio waves, and plasma gas.
Solar flares are sudden flashes of brightness near the Sun's surface, consisting of magnetic energy including electrons, protons, and nuclei. These can be harmful to satellite communication.
The Sun's core consists of hydrogen atoms that fuse together due to compression, creating helium. This process is called nuclear fusion.
Nuclear fusion produces a vast amount of energy, which radiates outward to the surface, atmosphere, and beyond.
Sun's Structure
The convection zone, next to the core, has a temperature of 2 million degrees Celsius.
The photosphere, the Sun's visible surface, has a temperature of 6,000°C.
The Sun's atmosphere consists of the chromosphere and corona.
The corona emits spectral lines from iron, calcium, and nickel ions, with ionization increasing the temperature of the corona.
Solar Phenomena
The solar wind is a stream of charged particles released from the Sun's corona, consisting mostly of electrons, protons, and alpha particles.
A solar storm is a disturbance on the Sun that can affect the entire solar system, including Earth's magnetosphere, causing space weather.
A geomagnetic storm is a temporary disturbance of Earth's magnetosphere caused by solar wind shock waves and magnetic fields.
Solar flares are harmful particles that can affect satellite communication.
The auroral display, caused by charged particles from the solar wind entering Earth's atmosphere, is known as:
Aurora Borealis (Northern Lights) in the northern hemisphere
Aurora Australis (Southern Lights) in the southern hemisphere
Sunspots are dark areas on the photosphere where solar flares originate, cooler than their surroundings. They appear and disappear in an 11-year cycle, marked by the "solar maximum" (peak number of sunspots) and "solar minimum" (lowest number).
Sun's Structure in 02 Minutes
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