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----------------- - 1832 - That Lucky Ol’ Sun got nothing to do?
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- That lucky ol’ Sun got nothing to do but to roam around heaven all day? It looks peaceful but that sunshine is coming from nothing but. The Sun’s surface is twisting, towering loops and swirling cyclones that reach millions of degrees temperature. Called the “ Corona” it sports radiation far beyond the visible light that we can see.
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- Studies have found the Sun to be a giant magnetic star, obeying the laws of electromagnetism. Astronomers are still trying to learn what is causing this behavior. What is driving the magnetic system?
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- The Sun’s magnetic storms and explosions ,or flares, create the “ space weather” we experience on Earth. The most familiar being the “ Auroras” at the north magnetic pole.
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- The Sun is also creating the interplanetary magnetic field that astronauts must travel through safely.
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- The Sun is made of “ plasma” which is a gas-like state of matter in which electrons and positive ions (hydrogen nuclei) in to a hot mix of charged particles. When charges move they create a magnetic field encircling their direction of motion. Just like electricity moving though a wire creates an electromagnetic.
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- The Sun’s enormous heat churns up massive currents of rising and falling plasma above the nuclear furnace at the center. The results is the Sun’s surface is dynamic chaos of loops and towers of material radiating EUV images, Extreme Ultraviolet. The surface photosphere is marked with sunspots which are the cooler tails of these magnetic loops.
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- The solar dynamo is still a mystery that is known to drive the 11- year activity cycle known as sunspots. The cycle is referred to as the Solar Maximum and Solar Minimum. At Solar Minimum the magnetic field is concentrated at the poles. At Soar Maximum the magnetic field becomes tangled and disordered creating flares and corona mass ejections.
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- Our Sun will eventually burn all its hydrogen fuel and expand into a Red Dwarf and then compress into a White Dwarf star. If it were larger it would instead explode into a Supernova.
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- These exploding stars produce the Universe’s most energetic and powerful gamma rays, the highest frequency, shortest wavelength electromagnetic radiation.
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- The best observer we have today for these powerful Gamma Rays is the Fermi Space Telescope. Most of he Gamma Rays are generated by “Blazers”. These are generated by compact elliptical galaxies anchored by active super massive Blackholes.
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- “Pulsars” are also responsible for some Gamma Ray radiation. Even our Sun can produce these powerful rays. The Gamma Ray frequencies range between 50 billion and 2,000 billion electron-volts. The visible light your eyes respond to is 2 to 3 electron-volts, for comparison.
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- The Fermi satellite telescope is busy cataloguing these Gamma Ray sources in a large patch of sky. We want to learn what generates this enormous power and the mechanism that accelerates the sub-atomic particles producing gamma-ray emissions.
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- Our Sun is certainly a gentle giant among these stars. We may get a sunburn from ultraviolet radiation or a solar flare may knot out satellites and power grids, but, nothing like what could be happening living too close to a larger star. Thank your lucky stars for that.
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- Footnote (1): How does the Sun produce its energy and how long will it last?
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- 4 protons are fused to produce one helium nucleus.
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- Some energy is released per proton = 6.7 MeV / proton. ( million electron volts)
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- The total mass of the Sun is 2*10^30 kilograms.
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- The mass of a proton is 1.67*10^-27 kilograms
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- Therefore the Sun contains 1.2*10^57 protons.
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- The total power emitted by the Sun is 3.9*10^26 joules / second. A joule is a unit of energy = a watt per second. Each electron-volt is 1.6022810^-19 joules. Or, in other words 1.6022*10^-13 joules / MeV.
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- So, the number of protons burned each second is:
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------------------ 6.7 MeV / proton * ( 1.6022*10^-13 joules / MeV) = 10.73*10^-13 joules / proton
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-----------------3.9*10^26 joules / second / 10.73*10^-13 joules / proton = 0.36 *10^39 protons / second.
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- That is a lot of protons / second. How long will the Sun last at that rate?
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----------------- 1.2*10^57 protons / 0.36*10^39 protons / second = 3.33*10^18 seconds.
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-------------------- 3.33*10^18 seconds / 3.16*10^7 seconds / year = 1 *10^11 years.
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- So, if the Sun burned all of its protons it would last for 100 billion years. However, the Sun only fuses protons at its center where the core is hot enough and has enough pressure. The inner most 10% is where fusion happens. This 10% would allow the Sun to last only 10 billion years. Since the Sun is about 5 billion years old it is mid-life in its evolution as our favorite star.
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- Request these Reviews to learn more:
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- #1720 - How do we know the age of the Sun? Some math and lists 10 other reviews on the subject.
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- #1674 - What causes a star to evolve into a Red Giant star , like our Sun will do in another 5 billion years.
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- #1220 - Does the Sun contain the Periodic Table
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- #1168 - How many pounds of hydrogen are used in fusion energy to heat up my backyard?
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- #918 - What happens to the Sun when it runs out of hydrogen for fusion energy?
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- #858 - How hot is the Sun?
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----- 707-536-3272 ---------------------- Sunday, February 28, 2016 -----
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