The-sun

The sun 

   The sun is a nearly perfect sphere of hot, glowing gas. Its source of power lies buried deep in the central core, where a nuclear furnace rages nonstop, turning matter into pure heat and light.

Slightly bigger than a typical star, the sun is larger enough by volume to swallow 1.3 millon earths. It c ontains 99.8 per cent of all the matter in the in the the solar system, and the force of gravity generated by this enormous mass keeps the planets trapped in in orbit around it. Seen from earth, the sun is a life-sustaining source of light and warmth that shines steadily on us. Closer views, how ever, reveal a world of astonishing vilonce, its seething surface bursting with vast eruptions that hurl fiery gases into space.

Inside the Sun 

  Scientists divide the Sun’s interior into three distinct layers; the core, the radiative zone, and the convective zone. All three are made solely of gas, but the gas gets hotter and denser towards the centre. In the core, the temperature soars to 15 million ⁰c(27 million⁰F) andthe gas is 150 times more dense than water.

Spikes of gass 

  Jets of hot gas rise all the time from the Sun’s surface, formaing towering spikes that last just a few minutes before collaqpsing . Called spicules, these formations can reach thousands of kilometres in height. Seen from above (right), they form shimmering, hair- like patterns around a sunspot.


Energy release 

  It takes only eight minutes for light form the sun to reach Earth, but it can take 100,000 years for energy released in the Sun,s core to travel to the surface and emerge as light. The journey is slow because the energy is absorbed and re –emitted by trillions of atoms as it passes through the dense radiative zone.

Rotation 

  Like all objects in space , the sun rotates. Unlike Earth, which rotates as a solid object, the Sun is a ball of gas and turns at different speeds in different places. The equator takes 25 Earth days to rotate once, but the polar regions take 34 days.

Mass ejections 

  Vast bubbles of superhot gas (plasma), each with a mass of around a billion tonnes, erupt from the Sun up to three times a day. Called coronal mass ejection, these bubbles grow millions of kms wide in a few hours and then burst, sending ablast of charged particles hurtling across the solar system.