1. Chapter 9 The Sun

2. Sunspots
The Sun is our star—the main source of energy that powers weather, climate, and life on Earth. Humans simply would not exist without the Sun. Although we take it for granted each and every day, the Sun is of great importance to us in the cosmic scheme of things. This spectacular image shows a small piece of the Sun “up close”—a high-resolution photograph taken from Earth, revealing its granulated surface and dark spots, all of which are gas. The region shown is 50,000 kilometers on a side, equal to about four times the size of Earth, but only a few percent of the Sun’s complete surface. (Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences)

3. Our Sun Is the nearest star 8 light minutes away
Next nearest star is 4.3 light-years away (300,000X further than sun)

4. Figure 9.1 The Sun
The inner part of this composite, filtered image of the Sun shows a sharp edge, although our star, like all stars, is made of a gradually thinning gas. The edge appears sharp because the solar photosphere is so thin. The outer portion of the image is the solar corona, normally too faint to be seen, but visible during an eclipse, when the light from the solar disk is blotted out. (Note the blemishes; they are sunspots.) (NOAO)

5. Table 9.1 Some Solar Properties

6. Solar Rotation Differential rotation Measure by timing sunspots
Faster at equator
Slower at poles
X-ray and visible light movie of sun

7. Figure 9.2 Solar Structure
The main regions of the Sun, not drawn to scale, with some physical dimensions labeled. The photosphere is the visible “surface” of the Sun. Below it lie the convection zone, the radiation zone, and the core. Above the photosphere, the solar atmosphere consists of the chromosphere, the transition zone, and the corona.

8. Solar Structure Core Radiation zone Convection zone
Photosphere (“surface” we see)
Chromosphere
Transition zone
Corona
Solar wind

9. Solar Luminosity Solar constant 1400 W/m2 above earth’s atmosphere
1000 W/m2 at earth’s surface
Solar constant and distance to sun gives luminosity of about 4 X 1026 W

10. Figure 9.3 Solar Luminosity
We can draw an imaginary sphere around the Sun so that the sphere’s surface passes through Earth’s center. The radius of this imaginary sphere is one AU. The “solar constant” is the amount of power striking a 1 m2 detector at Earth’s distance, as shown in the inset. By multiplying the sphere’s surface area by the solar constant, we can measure the Sun’s luminosity, the amount of energy it emits each second.

11. Stellar balance Outward pressure of hot gas Inward pull of gravity
Balanced at every point in a star

12. Figure 9.4 Stellar Balance
In the interior of a star such as the Sun, the outward pressure of hot gas balances the inward pull of gravity. This is true at every point within the star, guaranteeing its stability.

13. Standard solar model Mathematical and physical model of sun
Based on observations and physical laws
Predicts density and temperature
Helioseismology allows knowledge of interior structure

14. Figure 9.5 Solar Oscillations
(a) The Sun has been found to vibrate in a very complex way. By observing the motion of the solar surface, scientists can determine the wavelengths and frequencies of the individual waves and deduce information about the Sun not obtainable by other means. The alternating patches represent gas moving down (red) and up (blue). (See also Discovery 9-1.) (b) Depending on their initial directions, the waves contributing to the observed oscillations may travel deep inside the Sun, providing vital information about the solar interior. (National Solar Observatory)

15. Figure 9.6 Solar Interior
Theoretical density and temperature distributions in the interior of the Sun. (a) A cross-sectional cut through the center of the Sun. (b) The variation of density across the cut. (c) The corresponding run of temperature.

16. Sun’s temperature and density
Core density 150,000 kg/m3 (20X iron)
Core temperature 15 million K
Core is a gas (plasma)
Photosphere is X density of earth’s atmosphere
Photosphere temperature 5780 K

17. Discovery 9.1 SOHO: Eavesdropping on the Sun
Ultraviolet image of the Sun

18. SOHO
Solar and Heliospheric Observatory
European Space Agency

19. Solar energy transport
Near core - very hot
Gas is completely ionized (plasma)
No photons captured - transparent to radiation
Outer edge of radiation zone cool enough for electrons to re-combine with nuclei
Photons all absorbed

20. Convection Zone Energy transported by rising hot gases
Cooler gas sinks
Convection cells vary in size with depth in convection zone
Tens of thousands of km to a thousand km convection cells
Photons from photosphere escape into space

21. Figure 9.7 Solar Convection
Physical transport of energy in the Sun’s convection zone. This region is visualized as a boiling, seething sea of gas. Each convective cell at the top of the convection zone is about 1000 km across. The convective cell sizes become progressively smaller closer to the surface. (This is a highly simplified diagram; there are many different cell sizes, and they are not so neatly arranged.)

22. Evidence for convection
Solar granulation of photosphere
Granules size of a large US state
Last 5 to 10 minutes
Bright regions - hot gas rising
Dark regions - cool gas sinking
500 K difference between hot and cool

23. Figure 9.8 Solar Granulation
A photograph of the granulated solar photosphere, taken from the Skylab space station looking directly down on the Sun’s surface. Typical solar granules are comparable in size to Earth’s continents. The bright portions of the image are regions where hot material is upwelling from below, as shown in Figure 9.7. The dark regions correspond to cooler gas that is sinking back down into the interior. The inset drawing shows a perpendicular cut through the surface. (NASA)

24. Solar Granulation movie
Near infrared
60 minute sequence sped up
At or click here

25. Doppler shift Bright granules move up at about 1 km/s
Dark granules move down at about 1 km/s

26. Supergranulation Larger scale flow beneath solar surface
30,000 km across

27. Figure 9.9 Solar Spectrum
A detailed visible spectrum of our Sun shows thousands of dark absorption lines, indicating the presence of 67 elements in various stages of excitation and ionization in the lower solar atmosphere. The numbers give wavelengths, in nanometers. (Palomar Observatory/Caltech)

28. Composition of solar atmosphere
Primarily H and He
Also O, C, N, Si, Mg, Ne, Fe, S
Similar to Jovian planets and rest of universe

29. Table 9.2 The Composition of the Sun

30. Figure 9.10 Solar Chromosphere
This photograph of a total solar eclipse shows the solar chromosphere a few thousand kilometers above the Sun’s surface. Note the prominence at left. (G. Schneider)

31. Solar chromosphere Above photosphere and less dense
Pinkish hue from H emission
Expelling jets of hot matter - spicules
Last minutes
100 km/s

32. Figure 9.11 Solar Spicules
Short-lived, narrow jets of gas that typically last mere minutes can be seen sprouting up from the chromosphere in this Hα image of the Sun. The spicules are the thin, dark, spikelike regions. They appear dark against the face of the Sun because they are cooler than the photosphere. (NOAO)

33. Corona Corona visible during total solar eclipse
Emission spectrum visible against blackness of space
Ionized atoms - high coronal temperatures

34. Figure 9.12 Solar Corona
When both the photosphere and the chromosphere are obscured by the Moon during a solar eclipse, the faint solar corona becomes visible. This
photograph shows clearly the emission of radiation from a relatively inactive corona. (Bencho Angelov)

35. Transition Zone Minimum temperature of 4500 K in chromosphere
Temperature climbs through transition zone
Reaches several million K in corona

36. Figure 9.13 Solar Atmospheric Temperature
The change in gas temperature in the lower solar atmosphere is dramatic. The temperature, indicated by the blue line, reaches a minimum of 4500 K in the chromosphere and then rises sharply in the transition zone, finally leveling off at around 3 million K in the corona.

37. Solar wind Starts 10 million km above photosphere
Hot coronal gas escapes sun’s gravity
Millions of tons of sun ejected each second
Only lost 0.1% of mass in 4.6 billion years

38. X-rays in corona Photosphere emits primarily visible light
Hotter corona emits primarily X-rays
Coronal holes - visible in X-rays
Solar wind escapes in coronal holes
Related to magnetic fields

39. Figure 9.14 Sunspots
This photograph of the entire Sun, taken during a period of maximum solar activity, shows several groups of sunspots. The largest spots in this image are more than 20,000 km across, nearly twice the diameter of Earth. Typical sunspots are only about half this size. (Palomar Observatory/Caltech)

40. Figure 9.15 Sunspots, Up Close
(a) The largest pair of sunspots in Figure 9.14, each consisting of a cool, dark inner region called the umbra surrounded by a warmer, brighter region called the penumbra. The spots appear dark because they are slightly cooler than the surrounding photosphere. (b) A high-resolution, true-color image of a single sunspot shows details of its structure as well as the granules surrounding it. This spot is about the size of Earth. (Palomar Observatory/Caltech; National Solar Observatory)

41. Sunspots In photosphere Cooler (darker) than surrounding material
Dark umbra (4500 K)
Grayish penumbra (5500 K)
Typically 10,000 km across (size of earth)

42. Sunspot magnetism Magnetic field of photosphere stronger than earth’s
Magnetic field in sunspots is 1000X greater than surrounding photosphere
Field lines perpendicular to surface
Strong fields interfere with convective flow
Causes sunspots to be cooler

43. Sunspot magnetic polarity
Sunspots in pairs at same latitude
Pair members have opposite polarity N&S
Leading spot in a hemisphere always has same polarity
Leading spot in other hemisphere has opposite polarity

44. Figure 9.16 Sunspot Magnetism
(a) Sunspot pairs are linked by magnetic field lines. The Sun’s magnetic field lines emerge from the surface through one member of a pair and reenter the Sun through the other member. The leading members of all sunspot pairs in the solar northern hemisphere have the same polarity (labeled N or S, as described in the text). If the magnetic field lines are directed into the Sun in one leading spot, they are inwardly directed in
all other leading spots in that hemisphere. The same is true in the southern hemisphere, except that the polarities are always opposite those in the north. The entire magnetic field pattern reverses itself roughly every 11 years. (b) A far-ultraviolet image taken by NASA’s Transition Region and Coronal Explorer (TRACE) satellite in 1999, showing magnetic field lines arching between two sunspot groups. Note the complex structure of the field lines, which are seen here via the radiation emitted by superheated gas flowing along them. Resolution here is about 700 km. In this negative image (which shows the lines more clearly), the darkest regions have temperatures of about 2 million K. (NASA)

45. Magnetic field wrapping
Differential rotation “wraps” magnetic field
North-south re-oriented to east-west
Convection lifts field to surface
Twisting and tangling results
Some kinks rise out of photosphere
Forms sunspot pair

46. Figure 9.17 Solar Rotation
(a, b) The Sun’s differential rotation wraps and distorts the solar magnetic field. (c) Occasionally, the field lines burst out of the surface and loop through the lower atmosphere, thereby creating a sunspot pair. The underlying pattern of the solar field lines explains the observed pattern of sunspot polarities. (If the loop happens to occur near the edge of the Sun and is seen against the blackness of space, we see a phenomenon called a prominence, see Figure 9.20.) A reasonable analogy might be the loops and kinks that form in a tangled garden hose.

47. Analogy 9.1 A tangled garden hose

48. Figure 9.18 Sunspot Cycle
(a) Annual number of sunspots throughout the twentieth century, showing five-year averages of annual data to make long-term trends more evident. The (roughly) 11-year solar cycle is clearly visible. At the time of minimum solar activity, hardly any sunspots are seen. About four years later, at the time of maximum solar activity, as many as 200 spots are observed per year. (b) Sunspots cluster at high latitudes when solar activity is at a minimum. They appear at lower and lower latitudes as the number of sunspots peaks. They are again prominent near the Sun’s equator as solar minimum is again approached. The most recent solar maximum occurred in The blue lines in the upper plot indicate the average latitude of the spots at any given time.

49. Maunder minimum Cycle varies from 7 to 15 years
Overall activity varies
Solar inactivity from
Maunder minimum caused “Little Ice Age”

50. Figure 9.19 Maunder Minimum
Number of sunspots occurring each year over the past four centuries. Note the absence of spots during the late seventeenth century.

51. Solar prominences Loops or sheets of gas ejected into lower corona
Maybe due to magnetic fields near sunspots
Typically 100,000 km (10X diameter of earth)

52. Figure 9.20 Solar Prominences
(a) This particularly large solar prominence was observed by ultraviolet detectors aboard the SOHO spacecraft in June (b) Like a phoenix rising from the solar surface, this filament of hot gas measures more than 100,000 km in length. Earth could easily fit between its outstretched “arms.” Dark regions in this TRACE image have temperatures less than 20,000 K; the brightest regions are about 1 million K. The ionized gas follows the solar magnetic field lines away from the Sun. Most of the gas will subsequently cool and fall back into the photosphere. (NASA)

53. Solar prominence movie
Big Bear Solar Observatory
At or click here

54. Solar flares More violent than prominences
Sweeps across active region in minutes
Temperature of millions of K
Material blasted into space

55. Figure 9.21 Solar Flare
Much more violent than a prominence, a solar flare is an explosion on the Sun’s surface that sweeps across an active region in a matter of minutes, accelerating solar material to high speeds and blasting it into space. (USAF)

56. Solar flare movie Big Bear Solar Observatory
Go to or click here

57. Corona activity Coronal mass ejection
Several times per day during sunspot maximum
Can cause communication and power disruption on earth

58. Figure 9.22 Coronal Mass Ejection
(a) A few times per week, on average, a giant magnetized “bubble” of solar material detaches itself from the Sun and rapidly escapes into space, as shown in this SOHO image taken in The circles are artifacts of an imaging system designed to block out the light from the Sun itself and exaggerate faint features at larger radii. (b) Should such a coronal mass ejection encounter Earth with its magnetic field oriented opposite to our own, as shown, the field lines can join together, allowing high-energy particles to enter and possibly severely disrupt our planet’s magnetosphere. If the fields are oriented differently, the coronal mass ejection simply slides by Earth with little effect. (NASA/ESA)

59. Figure 9.23 Coronal Hole
(a) Images of X-ray emission from the Sun observed by the Yohkoh satellite. These frames were taken at roughly two-day intervals, starting at the
left. Note the dark, V-shaped coronal hole traveling from left to right, where the X-ray observations outline in dramatic detail the abnormally thin regions through which the high-speed solar wind streams forth. (b) Charged particles follow magnetic field lines that compete with gravity. When the field is trapped and loops back toward the photosphere, the particles are also trapped; otherwise, they can escape as part of the solar wind. (ISAS/Lockheed Martin)

60. Figure 9.24 Active Corona
Photograph of the solar corona during the July 1991 eclipse, at the peak of the sunspot cycle. At these times, the corona is much less regular and much more extended than at sunspot minimum (compare Figure 9.12). Astronomers think that coronal heating is caused by surface activity on the Sun. The changing shape and size of the corona are the direct result of variations in prominence and flare activity over the course of the solar cycle. (National Solar Observatory)

61. SOHO Coronal mass ejection
White ring is size of sun
Play movie or go to

62. Sun’s energy source Nuclear fusion reactions in core
Two nuclei combine forming 3rd nucleus plus energy
3rd nucleus has less mass than sum of two nuclei
Mass converted to energy E = mc2
Need high temperature to overcome charge repulsion

63. Figure 9.25 Proton Interactions
(a) Since like charges repel, two low-speed protons veer away from one another, never coming close enough for fusion to occur. (b) Sufficiently high-speed protons may succeed in overcoming their mutual repulsion, approaching close enough for the strong force to bind them together—in which case they collide violently, triggering nuclear fusion that ultimately powers the Sun.

64. Proton-Proton chain 4 protons  helium-4 + 2 neutrinos + energy
Neutrino is chargeless and virtually massless particle
Neutrinos easily pass through sun

65. Figure 9.26 Solar Fusion
In the proton–proton chain, a total of six protons (and two electrons) are converted to two protons, one helium-4 nucleus, and two neutrinos. The two leftover protons are available as fuel for new proton–proton reactions, so the net effect is that four protons are fused to form one helium-4 nucleus. Energy, in the form of gamma rays, is produced at each stage.

66. Energy generated 600 million tons of H fused into He every s
Sun can sustain this another 5 billion years
Energy produced in core as gamma rays
Neutrinos also carry off energy

67. Figure 9.27a Neutrino Telescope in Japan
(a) This swimming pool–sized “neutrino telescope” is buried beneath a mountain near Tokyo, Japan. Called Super Kamiokande, it is filled (in operation) with 50,000 tons of purified water, and contains 13,000 individual light detectors (some shown here being inspected by technicians) to sense the telltale signature—a brief burst of light—of a neutrino passing through the apparatus. The instrument was badly damaged by a freak accident in November 2001, when one of the detectors apparently imploded, creating a shock wave and chain reaction that destroyed more than half the detectors. It is currently under repair.

68. Figure 9.27b Neutrino Telescope in Ontario, Canada
The Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (SNO), situated 2 km underground in Ontario, Canada. The SNO detector is similar in design to the Kamiokande device, but, by using “heavy” water (with hydrogen replaced by deuterium) instead of ordinary water and adding two tons of salt, it also becomes sensitive to other neutrino types. The device contains 10,000 light-sensitive detectors, arranged on the inside of the large sphere shown here. (ICRR, SNO)

69. Neutrinos
Less neutrinos detected at earth than predicted by standard solar model
Neutrinos oscillate into new types during journey to earth
Latest neutrino detectors can find all types

70. More Precisely 9.2 Energy Generation in the Proton–Proton Chain