The sun is an ordinary star, one of approximately 100 billion in our Milky Way galaxy. The sun has a huge impact on our planet: it controls the weather, ocean currents, seasons, and climate, as well as allows plant life to exist through photosynthesis. The Earth’s distance from the sun is approximately 150 million kilometers (93 million miles).
The solar system revolves around the Sun, which is a star. It is approximately 4.6 billion years old and contains more than 99 percent of the system’s mass. Nuclear fusion processes in its core transform around 4.5 million tonnes of mass into energy per second, creating neutrinos and solar radiation. Light and heat are provided by the limited quantity of this energy that penetrates Earth’s atmosphere.
Sun’s composition
The sun is composed of a fiery mixture of gases. These gases occur in the form of plasma. Plasma is a condition of matter that resembles gas but has the majority of its particles ionised. This displays how many electrons the particles have.
About three-quarters of the sun is hydrogen, which is constantly fusing to form helium through a process known as nuclear fusion. The remaining quarter is virtually entirely made up of helium. Other gases and metals make up only 1.69 percent of the sun’s mass: iron, nickel, oxygen, silicon, sulphur, magnesium, carbon, neon, calcium, and chromium. Although this 1.69 percent may appear tiny, it has a mass of 5,628 times that of Earth.
Sun’s Characteristics
Sun Characteristics are given below:
- The Sun has a mass of 1.98892 x 1030 kg.
- The Sun’s diameter is 1.391 million kilometres (870,000 miles).
- The Sun has a lot of mass, which means it has a lot of gravity.
- The Sun has a density of 1.4 grams per cubic centimetre.
- The Sun’s circumference is 4,379,000 kilometres.
Structure of sun
The sun is more than simply a giant ball of burning gas; it has a sophisticated interior structure that is divided into four layers. The atmosphere is further divided into three sublayers by scientists. The core, the radiative zone, the convection zone, the photosphere, the chromosphere, and the corona are the six layers of the sun.
Core
Hydrogen fusion takes place in the sun’s core, which is the hottest area. The gravitational forces in the core are so strong that they compress hydrogen into a liquid with a density 150 times that of water.
Radiative zone
The density of the zone directly surrounding the core decreases as the radius increases, yet it stays dense enough to prevent light from escaping. Radiation from the continuous fusion reaction at the core bounces around in the radiative zone for 100,000 years before it escapes into space.
Convection zone
The convection zone is a region of high turbulence that stretches from 200,000 km below the surface to the visible surface. The density in this zone reduces to a point where light from the core can be converted to heat.
Photosphere
The photosphere is the observable layer of the sun’s atmosphere from Earth. The temperature has dropped to 5,800 degrees Celsius (10,000 F). Solar flares and sunspots, which are dark, cool patches generated when the sun’s magnetic field breaks through to the surface, are visible on the photosphere.
Chromosphere
The temperature climbs to 20,000 C in the chromosphere, which stretches roughly 2,000 km above the photosphere (36,032 F). This layer gets its name because the radiated light turns crimson.
Corona
The corona, the sun’s outermost layer, is normally invisible from Earth, but it becomes visible during a total solar eclipse. The gases have a density roughly a billion times that of water, yet their temperature can reach 2 million degrees Celsius (3.6 million F).
Sun’s Evolution
The Sun’s Evolution For 4.6 billion years, the Sun has been blazing. In the core, where the burning is most rapid, a significant amount of hydrogen has been transformed into helium. Helium sticks around because it absorbs more radiation than hydrogen.
Conclusion
In this article, we learned our solar system’s centre is a star, a hot ball of incandescent gases. Its influence reaches well beyond Neptune and Pluto’s orbits. There would be no life on Earth if not for the sun’s immense energy and heat. The sun has a huge impact on our planet: it controls the weather, ocean currents, seasons, and climate, as well as photosynthesis, which allows plants to exist. Life on Earth would be impossible without the sun’s heat and light.