Sunshine's Blog

We’d like to thank…

supersunscience — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 03:00:54 +0000

Apollo would like to thank…

Youtube – for the information on Auroras, and and videos

Enchanted Learning . com – for the info on star life cycles

http://hesperia.gsfc.nasa.gov/sftheory/flare.htm – for the info on Solar Flares

and

http://csep10.phys.utk.edu/astr162/lect/sun/wind.html – for the data on Solar Wind

THANKS GUYS!!!!

Ra would like to thank…

Helios would like to thank…

Fate of our Sun

supersunscience — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 02:49:06 +0000

Our sun is predicted to be around for another five billion years. During that time, it will gradually get warmer and warmer until it turns into a Red Giant. After that it will turn into a Planetary Nebula. Next it will become a white dwarf, until finally becoming a black dwarf.

Stars bigger than our sun, have however, a different path to follow. They will become a red supergiant, then a nebula, and lastly a neutron star or a black hole.

Prominences

lothar — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 01:12:51 +0000

Prominences (or filaments) look like huge loops of fire coming out of the sun’s surface. They are really eruptions of gases. They can last for many hours, and can go hundreds of thousands of miles into space. Due to the magnetic pull the sun has on them, it stays above the sun’s surface. Think of the size difference between a baseball and a bus. Now think of the earth as the baseball and a prominence as the bus. That is about the size difference between a prominence and earth. During some point in its life, a prominence has a coronal mass ejection, when it erupts.

Convection

lothar — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 17:13:11 +0000

Convection is the movement of molecules through fluids. It is a major mode with heat and mass transfer. This happens a lot through the layers of the sun. They take place a lot with diffusion. Convection is the movement of molecules through fluids. It is a major mode with heat and mass transfer. This happens a lot through the layers of the sun. They take place a lot through diffusion and advection.http://www.mmm.ucar.edu/asr2000/sun_convection.jpg

Sunspots

supersunscience — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 17:13:33 +0000

Sunspots are spots on the sun that seem darker and are cooler than the rest of the sun’s surface. They are caused by the sun’s magnetic field coming up to the surface, the photosphere. They are areas of intense magnetic activity, and can cause “solar storms”, which are solar flares and prominences. Sunspots can be 50,000 miles in diameter, and move across the sun, expanding and contracting as they go.

Names by Galileo himself, Aurora Borealis (A Latin term that translates to Red Dawn) is formed when solar particles are thrown out of the sun, They collide with the atmosphere, creating light. When millions of these types of collisions happen, it creates what we know as, The Northern Lights. The higher number of sunspots, the more often and the larger the Aurora Borealis.

Sun’s affects on the Earth

supersunscience — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 17:09:58 +0000

The sun affects earth’s weather and climate. If the sun goes black, all living things will die. The sunlight is the earth’s primary source of energy. For instance, plant grow food we need and without sunlight there can’t be photosynthesis and no food will grow. The sun even affect’s human minds. In Grecian times, they thought the sun was Apollo, god of the sun, healing and music. During an eclispe, they thought the world was ending. In Canada, they had a major blackout when a solar flare hit Earth. The sun melted the glaciers thousands of years ago and created many lakes. The sun is even causing global warming. The sun melts our snow every year so we can start spring. This is how the sun affects the earth.

Fusion

supersunscience — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 17:12:31 +0000

Fusion is how a star forms. It starts with a large ball of gasses, or a nebula, with much hydrogen. The hydrogen atoms move so fast that they hit each other and fuse together, forming helium. This process between the many atoms creates much heat, which creates light. The atoms clump together. The clump becomes larger, and becomes the size of a star. As the mass continues to grow, the fusion process slows due to heavier elements. Just think of how many atoms are needed to make our sun, which is over 100 times our planet Earth’s size!

The fusion of star

Layers of the Sun

supersunscience — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 17:04:43 +0000

In our big beautiful sun, it has five layers. The sun is just a big ball of helium and hydrogen. But it’s broken up into three layers. The innermost layer is called the core. The temperatures are so high that fusion occurs. (NOT THE CAR!)

The next layer is called the Radiative Zone. This region where solar material is so hot is creates thermal radiation. This transfers energy from interior of sun. It take energy a very long time to get through this layer.

The convection zone is the next layer. The solar plasma isn’t dense enough to transmit energy.

The next layer is the photoshere. Below this layer, the sun becomes opaque to visible light.

The last layer is called the sun’s atmoshere. Here, corona happens and is visible during a solar eclispe.

Imformation from: www.universetoday.com/ (Also picture too!)

Solar Flares

supersunscience — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 21:43:24 +0000

Solar flares are eruptions of energy and magnetic force that normally develop around massive storms on the sun’s surface that have been named, sun spots. Sometimes, under certain circumstances, when the Earth and the Sun face each other hit by massive bursts of energy which can disrupt the earth’s protection from dangerous particles from the sun. Solar flares, can affect radio communication when the energy from a solar storm shoots a flare into space to the farthest places of the solar system. The Earth though, can protect us from these solar flares. In fact, the tech. we have today, do more harm to the Earth than solar flares.

Solar wind

supersunscience — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 20:58:45 +0000

Solar wind is the constant stream of protons and electrons flowing from the Sun. The solar wind carries this stream of charged particles through the solar system, bringing the interplanetary magnetic field along. The interplanetary magnetic field, is the magnetic field produced by the Sun. The magnetosphere usually protects our Earth from solar flares, but When the interplanetary magnetic field touches out magnetosphere, a few solar particles get through causing the northern and southern lights. However, when the IMF interacts with the magnetosphere, some solar particles are able to leak in along the magnetic field lines at the North and South Poles, affecting Earth’s atmosphere and causing auroras. (It is believed that sun spots cause auroras too, which is why the video is in that category and not here)