The "Sun"

The "Sun" is the life giving and controlling body of our solar system. Our "Sun" is a "Star", with average dimensions among stars classified as average, in temperature, size and brightness. A series of thermo-nuclear fusion reactions involving it's elements produce the heat and light that make life possible here on "Earth". The "Sun" has a calculated diameter of 864,000 miles and has an average distance from Earth of 92,900,000 miles. It is 1.41 times as dense as water. The light and heat energy from the "Sun" reaches the Earth in 499.012 seconds or 8.3 minutes. The average solar surface temperature has been measured to be about 10,000 ⁰F. The interior temperature of the "Sun" is estimated to be about 35,000,000 ⁰F. The radiating surface of the "Sun" is called the "Photosphere", and just above it is the "Chromo sphere". Above the "Chromo sphere" is the "Corona". The pearly light of the "Corona" surges millions of miles into space. More than 60 of the natural elements of our solar system have been identified in the "Sun", all in gaseous form because of extreme attenuation. Sunspots are dark, irregular shaped regions whose diameters may reach tens of thousands of miles. The average life of a Sunspot is from two to three weeks, but there have been groups of Spots that lasted for more than a year. The record for the duration of a Sunspot is 18 months. The "Sun" is 400,000 times as bright as the "Full Moon" and gives the "Earth" 6 million times as much light as do all other "Stars" put together. However, in actuality, most of the "Stars" that can be seen on any clear night are brighter than our "Sun".
The mass of the Sun, M, is 743 times the total mass of all the planets in the solar system and 330,000 times that of the Earth. All the interesting planetary and interplanetary gravitational phenomena are negligible effects in comparison to the force exerted by the Sun. Under the force of gravity, the great mass of the Sun presses inward, and to keep the star from collapsing, the central pressure outward must be great enough to support its weight. The density at the Sun's core is about 100 times that of water (roughly six times that at the center of the Earth), but the temperature is at least 15,000,000 k or [26,999,540 deg F], so the central pressure is at least 10,000 times greater than that at the center of the Earth, which is 3,500 kilo bars or [50,760,000 psi]. The nuclei of atoms are completely stripped of their electrons, and at this high temperature they collide to produce the nuclear reactions that are responsible for generating the energy vital to life on Earth. While the temperature of the Sun drops from 15,000,000 K at the center to 5,800 K [9,980 deg F] at the photosphere, a surprising reversal occurs above that point; the temperature drops to a minimum of 4,000 K [6,740 deg F], then begins to rise in the chromo sphere, a layer about 7,000 kilometers or [4,350 miles] high to a temperature of 8,000 K or [13,940 deg F]. During a total eclipse the chromo sphere appears as a pink ring. Above the chromo sphere is a dim, extended halo called the corona, which has a temperature of 1,000,000 K [1,799,540 deg F] and reaches far past the planets.
Beyond a distance of 5R from the Sun, the corona flows outward at a speed (near the Earth) of 400 kilometers per second (km/s) or [248.5 miles/sec.]; this flow of charged particles is called the solar wind. The presence of a solar wind blowing through interplanetary space was first deduced from observations made during the 1950s of the ion tails of comets. With the advent of Earth-orbiting satellites, the particles and fields carried by the solar wind could be measured directly. When the wind blows past the Earth, it contains on average about five particles per cubic centimeter (mostly protons, the nuclei of hydrogen atoms) moving at about 500 km/sec (kilometers per second), but these numbers fluctuate greatly depending on the phase of the solar magnetic cycle and the presence or absence of recent flare activity.

Click on the "Sun" to see a Solar Flare.