1. The sun’s gravity holds all of the planets and comets in orbit
Why is the gravity of the sun so high?

2. The Sun’s Interior What happens in the center of the sun?
Nuclear fusion
Hydrogen joins to form Helium

3. The Sun’s Interior Core temperatures reach up to 15 million degrees
Enough hydrogen fuel in the sun to last for a total of 10 billion years.
How old is the sun now?

4. The Sun’s Atmosphere
3 Layers
Photosphere
Chromosphere
Corona

5. The Photosphere Inner layer of the sun’s atmosphere
The sphere that makes “light”
This is what you see when you look at the image of the sun.
blue.utb.edu/.../solar_system_origins.html

6. The Chromosphere Seen during an eclipse – beginning and end
Middle layer of the sun’s atmosphere
Chromo = “colors”
Eclipse -

7. The Corona Visible during the middle of a solar eclipse
Corona = “crown”
Only visible during eclipses and through telescopes from Earth’s surface.

8. The Corona (cont.)
Solar winds = a stream of electrically charged particles.
Usually blocked by the atmosphere and magnetic field
Sometimes reaches North or South Poles and causes auroras

10. Features of the Sun Sunspots- darker areas Prominences Solar Flares
Areas of gas on the sun that are cooler than the gases around them.
Prominences
Reddish loops of gas that link different parts of sunspot regions
Solar Flares
Explosions that occur when prominences link together. (H2 explodes)

11. Sunspots
Explanation: July was a good month for sunspots ... really big sunspots. In fact, the full disk and inset pictures above show three large groups of spots, photographed only a few days ago on July 28. Together the sunspots span a region about thirty times the diameter of planet Earth.

12. Prominences

13. Solar Flares
Solar flare video -