Question about the sun. - Multiverse - Solar Week Message Board -

Solar Week - Ask a Question

Come here during Solar Week (next one: March 22-26, 2021) to interact. To post a question, click on your area of interest from the topics below, and then click on the "Ask New Question" button. Or EMAIL or tweet or plant in Answer Garden your question about the Sun or life as a scientist to us -- and watch for it to appear here. You can also visit our FAQs (frequently asked questions). In between Solar Weeks in October and March, you can view all the archives here.

Forums
Search Forum
Advanced SearchTopicsPosts

Prev Go to previous topic

Go to next topic

Last Post 10/8/2009 5:37 AM by Emilia Kilpua

Question about the sun.

1 Replies

Sort:


You are not authorized to post a reply.

Author

Messages

Anonymous

Posts:

10/7/2009 3:04 PM
Hello ,my name is Chelsea Rivera and i am from Saugerties N.Y. I had actually two questions regarding the sun and its temperature. My first question is how do u measure the temperature of the sun and my second question was is the sun all one temperature or are there different part where the temperature is a little cooler.than the other?

Emilia Kilpua

New Member

Posts:88

10/8/2009 5:37 AM
Hi Chelsea, <!--[if gte mso 9]> Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 <!-- /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0cm; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";} @page Section1 {size:612.0pt 792.0pt; margin:72.0pt 90.0pt 72.0pt 90.0pt; mso-header-margin:36.0pt; mso-footer-margin:36.0pt; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} --> <!--[if gte mso 10]> Temperature varies greatly in different parts of the Sun. The hottest part of the Sun is its core. The solar core is extremely hot (about 27,000,000 Fahrenheit!), so hot (and dense) that hydrogen is fused to helium. Temperature in the core can be approximated in different ways. One is to estimate the temperature that is needed for the fusion to take place. The other way is to balance the heat expansion and the gravitational compression, i.e. to find out what temperature is needed to get this balance. When moving up from the core to the surface the temperature decreases. At the surface of the Sun the temperature is about 9900 Fahrenheit. The temperature also defines the colour we see the Sun. E.g. if the Sun’s surface would be cooler Sun would appear us more red. Solar surface defined by investigating the light that Sun emits. Interesting is also that part of the atmosphere of the Sun is hotter than its surface. In a region called chromosphere the temperature starts to rise very sharply. It is not yet clear why this happens.