The Sun By: Sam Belanger

What is it? The sun is G2 star Closest star to Earth Contains: hydrogen 70%, 28% helium, metals and other materials 2% Largest object in our solar system Contains 99.8% of the solar systems total mass Cant live without it Estimated 4.5 billion years old

Sun Materials

Characteristics Diameter: 1,390,000 km( 109 times the earth) Mass: 1.989e30 kg Temperature: about 27 million degrees Fahrenheit 93 million miles away from earth So large that its gravity is able to hold all of the planets in orbit

Purpose The sun is necessary for our survival The light from the sun heats our planet and makes life possible Eventually in an estimated 5 billion years, the sun will evolve into a red giant star and will no longer heat the earth Gets its energy from a process called nuclear fusion

Layers Photosphere: visible surface of the sun that is about 600 km thick Chromosphere: thin region below the corona, about 3,000 km thick Corona: forms the sun’s outer atmosphere, and can extend outward a distance equal to times the diameter of the sun Core: the center of the sun, where the energy is produced-temperature around 15,000,000 degrees Celsius

Solar Flares A solar flare is a basically a huge explosion on the sun Flares occur when intense magnetic fields on the sun become too tangled They emit huge bursts of electromagnetic radiation including x rays, ultraviolet radiation, visible light, and radio waves A sunspot, or a cooler, dark spot on the sun can also appear

Solar Eclipse Sometimes the moon comes between the Earth and the sun This event is called a solar eclipse If the moon is partially over the sun its known as a partial eclipse, or if its completely blocked, a total eclipse Happen usually once or twice a year Can be harmful if looked at

Cool Facts 1 million earths could fit in the sun The sun’s core is 150 times denser than that of water The sun is one of about 2 billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy The suns energy is about 386 billion billion megawatts A man weighing 60 kg on earth would weigh 1680 kg on the sun Einstein’s equation E=MC^2 changed ideas about the sun’s energy source by equating mass and energy

Resources Science text book content/uploads/2010/06/TotalSolarEclipse.jpg content/uploads/2010/06/TotalSolarEclipse.jpg prominent-red-giant-star-located-in-the-constellation- Crux.jpg prominent-red-giant-star-located-in-the-constellation- Crux.jpg 4/dn9824-1_831.jpg 4/dn9824-1_831.jpg