THE SUN

A P R E S E N TAT I O N P R E PA R E D B Y R I A N A
T H E R E S E F. G O L I N G A N
THE SUN
 - is the star at the center of the
Solar System.

- is almost perfectly spherical

and consists of hot plasma
interwoven with magnetic
fields.

- its diameter is 1,392,684 km,

around 109 times that of Earth.

- its mass is 1.989x kg,

approximately 330,000 times
of Earth, and accounts for
about 99.86% of the total mass
of the Solar System.
THE SUN
- chemically, about three
quarters of the Sun’s mass
consists of hydrogen
(74.9%), while the rest is
mostly helium (23.8%).

- the remaining 1.69%

consists of heavier elements,
including oxygen, carbon,
neon and iron, among others.
THE SUN
- formed about 4.567 billion
years ago from the
gravitational collapse of a
region within a large
molecular cloud. The
central mass became
increasingly hot and dense,
eventually initiating
thermonuclear fusion on its
core.
THE SUN
- is a G-type main-sequence
star (G2V) based on spectral
class, wherein G2 indicates
its surface temperature, of
approximately 5778 K, and
V indicates that the Sun is a
main-sequence star, and thus
generates its energy by
nuclear fusion of hydrogen
nuclei into helium.

- in its core, it fuses about

620 million metric tons of
hydrogen each second.
THE SUN
- it is informally designated
as a yellow dwarf because
its visible radiation is most
intense in the yellow-green
portion of the spectrum, and
although it is actually white
in color, from the surface of
the Earth it may appear
yellow because of
atmospheric scattering of
blue light.
 SUN
WITH SUNSPOTS 
AND LIMB
D A R K E N I N G  A S
SEEN IN VISIBLE
LIGHT WITH SOLA
R F I LT E R
THE SUN
- its hot corona
continuously expands in
space creating the solar
wind, a stream of charged
particles that extends to the
heliopause at roughly 100
astronomical units. The
bubble in the interstellar
medium formed by the solar
wind, the heliosphere, is the
largest continuous structure
in the Solar System.
THE SUN
- The Latin name for the
Sun, Sol, is not commonly
used in everyday
English. Sol is also used by
planetary astronomers to
refer to the duration of
a solar day on another
planet, such as Mars. The
related word solar is the
usual adjectival term used,
in terms such as solar
day, solar eclipse, and Solar
System.
PHYSICAL
CHARACTERISTCIS
OF THE SUN
THE SUN
- is a G-type main-sequence
star that comprises about
99.86% of the mass of the
Solar System.

- it is a near-perfect sphere,
an oblate.

- since it consists of a
plasma, and is not solid, it
rotates faster at its equator
than at its poles. This
behavior is known as
differential rotation.
THE SUN
- its radius is measured
from its center to the edge
of the photosphere, the last
visible layer of the Sun.

- during a total solar eclipse,

however, when the
photosphere is obscured by
the Moon, the Sun’s corona
can be easily seen
surrounding it.
 SOLAR
ECLIPSE
THE LAYERS OF
THE SUN
CORE
- extends from the center to
about 20–25% of the solar
radius. It has a density of up
to 150 g/cm3 (about 150
times the density of water)
and a temperature of close
to 15.7 million K.
CORE
- through most of the Sun's
life, energy has been produced
by nuclear fusion in the core
region through a series of steps
called the p–p (proton–proton)
chain; this process
converts hydrogen into helium.
CORE
- the core is the only region in
the Sun that produces an
appreciable amount of thermal
energy through fusion; 99% of
the power is generated within
24% of the Sun's radius, and by
30% of the radius, fusion has
stopped nearly entirely.

-the remainder of the Sun is

heated by this energy as it is
transferred outwards through
many successive layers, finally
to the solar photosphere where it
escapes into space as sunlight or
the kinetic energy of particles.
CORE
- since energy transport in
the Sun is a process which
involves photons in
thermodynamic equilibrium
with matter, the time scale
of energy transport in the
Sun is longer, on the order
of 30,000,000 years. This is
the time it would take the
Sun to return to a stable
state if the rate of energy
generation in its core were
suddenly to be changed.
RADIATIVE
ZONE
- from the core out to about
0.7 solar radii, thermal
radiation is the primary
means of energy transfer.
The temperature drops from
approximately 7 million to
2 million kelvins with
increasing distance from the
core.
RADIATIVE
ZONE
- this temperature
gradient is less than the
value of the adiabatic lapse
rate and hence cannot drive
convection, which explains
why the transfer of energy
through this zone is
by radiation instead of
thermal convection.
TACHOCLINE
- a transition layer that
separates the radiative zone
and the convective zone.

- is the region where the

sharp regime change between
the uniform rotation of the
radiative zone and the
differential rotation of the
convection zone above results
in a large shear – a condition
where successive horizontal
layers slide past one another.
TACHOCLINE
- the fluid motions found in
the convection zone above,
slowly disappear from the
top of this layer to its
bottom, matching the calm
characteristics of the
radiative zone on the
bottom.
CONVECTIVE
ZONE
- extends from 0.7 solar radii
(500,000 km) to near the
surface.

- in this layer, the solar plasma

is not dense enough or hot
enough to transfer the heat
energy of the interior outward
via radiation. Instead, the
density of the plasma is low
enough to allow convective
currents to develop and move
the Sun's energy outward
towards its surface.
CONVECTIVE
ZONE
- material heated at the
tachocline picks up heat and
expands, thereby reducing
its density and allowing it to
rise. As a result, an orderly
motion of the mass
develops into thermal
cells that carry the majority
of the heat outward to the
Sun's photosphere above. 
CONVECTIVE
ZONE
- once the material
diffusively and radiatively
cools just beneath the
photospheric surface, its
density increases, and it
sinks to the base of the
convection zone, where it
again picks up heat from the
top of the radiative zone
and the convective cycle
continues.
PHOTOSPHERE
- visible surface of the Sun.

- is the layer below which

the Sun becomes opaque to
visible light. Above the
photosphere visible sunlight
is free to propagate into
space, and almost all of its
energy escapes the Sun
entirely.
PHOTOSPHERE
- is tens to hundreds of
kilometers thick, and is
slightly less opaque than air
on Earth.

- because the upper part of

the photosphere is cooler
than the lower part, an
image of the Sun appears
brighter in the center than
on the edge or limb of the
solar disk, in a phenomenon
known as limb darkening.
SOLAR
ATMOSPHERE
- the parts of the Sun above
the photosphere are
collectively referred to as
the solar atmosphere.

- is comprised of five
principle zones:
a) Temperature minimum
b) Chromosome
c) Transition region
d) Corona
e) Heliosphere
a) T E M P E R AT U R
E MINIMUM
- coolest layer of the Sun that
extends to about 500 km above
the photosphere, and has a
temperature of about 4,200 K.

- this part of the Sun is cool

enough to allow the existence
of simple molecules such
as carbon monoxide and water,
which can be detected via their
absorption spectra.
b) C H R O M O S P H E R E
- above the temperature
minimum layer is a layer
about 2,000 km thick,
dominated by a spectrum of
emission and absorption
lines.

- from the Greek

root chroma, meaning color,
because it is visible as a
colored flash at the beginning
and end of total solar
eclipses.
c) T R A N S I T I O N
REGION
- above the chromosphere, in a
thin (about 200 km) transition
region, the temperature rises
rapidly from around 20,000 K in
the upper chromosphere to
coronal temperatures closer to
1,000,000 K.

- the temperature increase is

facilitated by the full ionization
of helium in the transition
region, which significantly
reduces radiative cooling of the
plasma.
c) T R A N S I T I O N
REGION
- does not occur at a well-
defined altitude. Rather, it
forms a kind of nimbus around
chromospheric features such
as spicules and filaments, and
is in constant, chaotic motion.

- is not easily visible from

Earth's surface, but is readily
observable from space by
instruments sensitive to
the extreme ultraviolet portion
of the spectrum.
d) C O R O N A
- the average temperature of
the corona and solar wind is
about 1,000,000–2,000,000 K;
however, in the hottest regions
it is 8,000,000–20,000,000 K.

- although no complete theory

yet exists to account for the
temperature of the corona, at
least some of its heat is known
to be from magnetic
reconnection.
d) C O R O N A
- is the extended atmosphere
of the Sun, which has a
volume much larger than the
volume enclosed by the Sun's
photosphere.

- waves at the outer surface of

the corona which randomly
blow to even further distance
from the Sun is called solar
wind, is one of the Sun’s
influence to the whole Solar
System.
e) H E L I O S P H E R E
- the tenuous outermost
atmosphere of the Sun, is
filled with the solar wind
plasma.

- outermost layer of the Sun is

defined to begin at the
distance where the flow of
the solar
wind becomes superalfvénic—
that is, where the flow
becomes faster than the speed
of Alfvén waves.
CHEMICAL
COMPOSITION
THE SUN
- is composed primarily of
the chemical elements
hydrogen (74.9%) and
helium (23.8%).

- all heavier elements,

called metals in astronomy,
account for less than 2% of
the mass. The most
abundant metals are oxygen
(1%), carbon (0.3%), neon
(0.2%), and iron (0.2%)
MAGNETIC
FIELD
THE SUN
- is a magnetically active
star. It supports a strong,
changing magnetic field that
varies year-to-year and
reverses direction about
every eleven years around
solar maximum.

- the sun’s magnetic field

leads to many effects called
solar activity, including
sunspots and solar flares.
THE SUN
- solar activity is thought to
have played a large role in
the formation and evolution
of the Solar System. It
changes the structure of the
Earth’s outer atmosphere.
LIFE SPAN
THE SUN
- the Sun today is roughly
halfway through the most
stable part of its life. It has
not changed dramatically
for over four billion years,
and will remain fairly stable
for more than five billion
more. However, after
hydrogen fusion in its core
has stopped, the Sun will
undergo dramatic changes,
both internally and
externally.