The Sun!!!!!

The Sun!!!!!By: Mrs. Greg Jennings

The Sun is Made of Plasma

Plasma is the fourth state of matterLiquid, solid, gas are the other three states

Plasma is super-heated ionized gas.

The Earth is 150,000,000 km from the Sun (1 AU).

Suns StructureCore (made of hydrogen and helium)The hydrogen fuses into helium in a process called nuclear fusion.This gives off a lot of heat and energy.The heat and energy moves by convection

Every second, 700 million tons of hydrogen is converted into helium and the rest of the energy is given off as heat/energy. Suns AgeThe sun is 5-6 billion years old and will last another 5-6 billion years.The temperature of the core is 15,000,000 C and the temperature of the corona is 6,000 C.PhotosphereThis is the visible layer of the Sun.

It consists of a layer of incandescent gas less than 500 kilometers thick.

It exhibits a grainy texture made up of many small, bright markings, called granules, produced by convection.Chromosphere

The chromosphere is the first layer of the solar atmosphere found directly above the photosphere.

It is a thin, hot layer of gases a few thousand kilometers thick.

Its top contains numerous spicules, which are narrow jets of rising material.

Corona (only visible during a solar eclipse)

The corona generates the solar winds

Solar wind is a stream of protons and electrons ejected at high speed from the solar corona.

False Color Solar Winds

Sunspots are spots that are cooler than the rest of the sun. They show up as dark on chromographs. Sunspots

ProminencesProminences are huge cloudlike structures consisting of chromospheric gases.

Prominences are ionized gases trapped by magnetic fields that come from regions of intense solar activity.

Prominences

Solar FlaresSolar flares are short outbursts of radiation (UV, X-ray and radio waves) that appear above a sunspot.

Auroras, the result of solar flares, are bright color displays of ever-changing light caused by solar flares interacting with the upper atmosphere around the poles.

The Sun is a yellow dwarfOver time (as it expands), it will turn into a RED GIANT and then collapse into a WHITE DWARF.The Sun is HUGEA million earths would fit in it.

But it is small by sun standards

It is expanding & getting bigger.

It is 98% of the mass of our Solar System.