The Sun

What do you know about the Sun?

Sun Facts The Sun is a normal G2 star, one of more than 100 billion stars in our galaxy. It is closer to Earth than any other star. It is a medium sized star called a yellow dwarf.

Sun Facts D iameter: miles (1,390,000 km) Earth is 100 times smaller than the Sun. If the Sun were an empty ball you could fit one million earths inside of it.

Sun Facts Mass: 2,192,409,010,000,000,000,000,000,000 tons (333,000 times Earth’s mass) The Sun’s gravity is 28 times greater than Earth. If you weigh 100 pounds on Earth you would weigh 1 ½ tons on the Sun.

How does the Sun compare to other planets in our solar system?

Comparison of The Sun and its Planets to Scale

What does the Sun do for us?

The Sun gives us light and heat. This allows plants to grow. Plants give us oxygen through photosynthesis.

The Sun helps power the water cycle. The Sun helps create wind. If there were no Sun, Earth would have no wind, rain, heat or light.

Energy is created in the core when hydrogen is fused to helium. This energy flows out from the core through the layers and travels beyond the surface of the Sun. Light from the Sun takes a little over eight minutes to reach the Earth.

Does the Sun rotate?

Sun does not rotate as a rigid sphere. The equator of the Sun rotates faster than the poles of the Sun. This is called the differential rotation. Sunspots and many other solar activities are due to this differential rotation.

Just how much energy comes from the Sun?

It is estimated that enough solar energy hits the earth in one single hour to power the entire globe for a full year.

How can we capture the energy from the Sun?

When an object is a solid, the molecules that it is made of are packed closely together. Heat can cause some materials to melt. That makes the molecules spread out and move more.

What else is going on with the Sun?

The Corona of the Sun The Sun's corona has a complex network of magnetic fields. Solar storms and flares result from changes in these fields.

Sunspots Sunspots appear as dark spots on the surface of the Sun. Temperatures in the dark centers of sunspots drop to about 3700 K (compared to 5700 K for the surrounding photosphere). They typically last for several days, although very large ones may continue for several weeks.

Solar Flares Images from SOHO* *NASA/ESA Solar and Heliospheric Observatory spacecraft Solar flares are tremendous explosions on the surface of the Sun. In a matter of just a few minutes they heat material to many millions of degrees and release as much energy as a billion megatons of TNT. They occur near sunspots.

Corona and Solar Wind Solar wind is the continuous flow of charged particles (ions, electrons, and neutrons) that comes from the Sun in every direction. The Sun’s Corona is forever expanding into interplanetary space filling the solar system with a constant flow of solar wind.

We say that the Sun rises in the East but does the Sun really rise?

When light hits a solid object it may create this behind the object and opposite the light. __ __ __

Umbra Penumbra Light Source Object

Why and how do shadows move and change?

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Why do we have seasons?

The seasons occur because the tilt of the Earth's axis keeps a constant orientation as the Earth revolves around the Sun. A. Summer in northern hemisphere. B. Winter in southern hemisphere