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.

PrevPrev Go to previous topic
NextNext Go to next topic
Last Post 3/22/2012 9:54 AM by  Claire Raftery
Solar energy
 1 Replies
Sort:
You are not authorized to post a reply.
Author Messages

Anonymous





Posts:


--
3/22/2012 8:04 AM

    Hi, my name is Daniel, and I was wondering how energy goes from the sun's core to it's surface, and how long does it take?

    Tags: sun, core, energy

    Claire Raftery



    New Member


    Posts:71
    New Member


    --
    3/22/2012 9:54 AM
    Hi Daniel, The Sun's energy is transported as light from the core to the surface. In order to do so, it must pass through a very very dense region called the radiative zone. This region is so dense that a light particle can only travel a very short distance before it gets absorbed. Once a particle of light is absorbed, it can be reemitted and move along a short distance again and get absorbed and so on and so on. This is what is known as a "random walk" because we can't predict which way the light will go, we just know it probably won't be in a straight line! Because the light has to go on this tangled up path to get to the surface, it takes on packet of light more than 100,000 years to get from the core to the surface! Claire
    You are not authorized to post a reply.


    Twitter Feed

    Scientist Leaderboard

    Name # of replies
    Multiverse skin is based on Greytness by Adammer