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 10/22/2019 9:59 AM by  Sabrina Savage
sun brightness
 1 Replies
Sort:
You are not authorized to post a reply.
Author Messages

Beverly





Posts:


--
10/22/2019 9:10 AM
    Does the sun get brighter?
    Tags: brightness

    Sabrina Savage



    New Member


    Posts:22
    New Member


    --
    10/22/2019 9:59 AM
    The Sun's brightness slightly varies with its activity cycle, but only on the order of about 0.1% at most. This measurement is termed Total Solar Irradiance. The brightness is also cyclical at certain wavelengths to a higher degree, which is due to the presence or absence of sunspots/active regions. On billion year timescales, the Sun's brightness will increase quite a bit as it evolves along the main sequence track on the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram, but the Sun is in a very stable stage of its life and humans have not experienced significant inherent brightness increases (although axial changes of the Earth due to precession do affect the distribution of energy across the globe).
    You are not authorized to post a reply.


    Twitter Feed

    Scientist Leaderboard

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