The Sun Research Paper

3. The sun is a ball of glowing gas, so it’s very, very hot. About three fourths of the sun's mass is highly, flammable gas, one fourth is helium, and very small amounts are other chemical elements.

Firstly, charged particles from the sun during solar flare penetrate Earth's magnetic field and collide with atoms and molecules in our atmosphere. These collisions result in little bursts of light called photons (a particle representing a quantum of light of other electromagnetic radiation) Great storms on the sun send gusts of solar particles hurtling across space.

Sunspots are regions on the surface of the sun, which is called the photosphere. Sunspots are cool, dark and temporary. The surface temperate of the sun is 6000 Celsius and sunspots are about 1500 Celsius. They can last up to hours or even months. Sunspots usually expand and contract as they move across the surface of the sun and can be as large as 80,000 km in diameter. Sunspots are magnetic fields on the sun, which are thousand times stronger than the magnetic fields on the earth. The magnetic field is the strongest in the darker parts of the sunspot, which is called umbra. The field is weaker in the lighter part, which is the penumbra. These are solar "storms", a kind of "burp" where the Sun ejects high-speed and energetic particles, which

Main Sequence stars make up about 90 percent of the stars in your universe. These stars are ones that are fusing hydrogen into helium at their cores. Our Sun is a Main Sequence Star. To create a Main Sequence star, an interstellar cloud goes through seven evolutionary stages which take approximately 40 to 50 million years.

The surface of the sun is worlds away. But on that surface, immense storms rage across the surface. These storms hurtle gusts of charged solar particles across the abyss of space. If the Earth happens to be in the path of the particles, the particles collide with molecules and atoms in the Earth's atmosphere. These atoms become stimulated by the sun's particles and light up. But what happens to cause the atoms to light up is where things start to get interesting.

Sunspots are temporary irregularities in the sun’s photosphere associated with a relatively more intense magnetic field (George Hale). Sunspots share a number of similar features. They:

Solar flares, Sun spots, and Radiation are all vital parts of the sun cycle. Sunspots create solar flare which gives off radiation, without one another the sun could explode because of energy build up.

the mass of the hydrogen is converted into energy. This is where fusion in the Sun happens. Every second, 600 million tons of hydrogen are being converted into helium. This reaction releases a tremendous amount of heat and energy. this reaction began 4.57 billion years ago, and it has been generating energy this way every since.The radiant energy corresponds to a range of wavelengths on the electromagnetic spectrum, of which visible light is only a small portion. The Sun shines by turning hydrogen into helium in its core. Stars have a roughly constant magnitude, colour and temperature during their

Nuclear fusion is a nuclear reaction where the atomic nuclei of low atomic number have been fused together to create a heavier nucleus with the release of energy. Fusion powers the sun which is already being conducted in laboratories throughout the world by scientists. Byproducts of the fusion process are a fast neutron and helium. These carry the heat to turn it into steam. Throughout the country there are 47 out of 50 states that support the fusion industry. For nuclear fusion to occur, there must be temperatures over a million degrees. On the sun and stars, nuclear fusion occurs. Hydrogen nuclei fuse to form helium nuclei in the sun. Only one percent of mass from an atom is converted into energy. It produces less radioactive weight

The Sun was formed about 4.57 billion years ago from a giant molecular cloud, which consisted mostly of hydrogen and helium (highest in Photospheric composition). The formation of the Sun would have been triggered by a shock wave from a nearby supernova. The matter in the molecular cloud would then be compressed to cause certain regions to collapse. As a consequence a fragment of cloud would start to rotate due to the conservation of angular momentum and heat up with the increasing pressure.

Deep in the sun's core, nuclear fusion reactions convert hydrogen to helium, which generates energy. Particles of light called photons carry this energy through the sun's spherical shell, called the radiative zone, to the top layer of the solar interior, the convection zone. There, boiling motions of gases (like in a lava lamp) transfer the energy to the surface. This journey takes more than a million years.

12. Why do thermonuclear reactions in the Sun take place only in its core? Thermonuclear reactions take place when the nuclei of atoms are fused together due to extreme temperatures (G-13). The temperature of the Suns core is 15.5 X 10^6 and at temperatures above 10 X 10^6 hydrogen fuses into the element helium (hydrogen fusion). Therefore the core is the only place on the Sun where Thermonuclear reactions are able to take place. Additionally the fusion that occurs in the Suns core is enough to account for all of the energy that is emitted to the Sun (326).

The Milky Way contains billions of stars with different ages and sizes. One example of a star which is closest to earth is the Sun. Just like all the other stars the sun is a luminous ball of gas which mostly contains hydrogen and helium and is held together with its own gravity. All the stars produce their own energy by a process called nuclear fusion. Stars life begins in the place what astronomers call the Nebulae. A nebula is enormous cloud consisting of dust and gas; mainly hydrogen and helium. There are three different types of nebulae. The first one is Emission Nebula. Emission Nebulae are usually red and pink in colour because they are filled with hydrogen gas. The Emission Nebula is very hot because of the newborn stars zap there surrounding

Though the sun’s corona lies several hundred thousand kilometers above the sun’s surface, the corona lies several hundred thousand kilometers above the sun’s surface, the corona has a temperature of at least 1 million Kelvin’s, about 200 times greater than that of the surface itself.

Our Sun continuously converts hydrogen into helium and with this process it provides the essentials for life processes. In doing this it controls “our climate, provides light, raises tides, and drives the food chain” (Schaefer 34). Our Sun also has influenced many beliefs now and in the past. History has documented Sun worshipping religions while many current societies use solar calendars (Schaefer 34).