Our Sun is fundamentally the Nucleus of our solar system and is a dynamic furnace of sorts that yields a varying temperature from around 27 million degrees Fahrenheit (15 million degrees Celsius) at the core to only about 10,000 degrees F (5,500 degrees C) at the surface, according to NASA (opens in new tab).Jan 21, 2022! And that is pretty darn HOT!
"Life on Earth would not exist without our huge hot glowing ball of gas. But just how hot is the sun? Well, that depends… Every 1.5 millionths of a second, the sun releases more energy than all humans consume in an entire year according to NASA Space Place.(opens in new tab) Here, we explore how hot each layer of the sun is and why the temperatures vary so much.
The sun is made of gas and plasma. Most of the gas — 92% — is hydrogen. If the sun were smaller, it would just be a huge ball of hydrogen akin to Jupiter. According to NASA Space Place, the hydrogen in the sun's core is held together by a lot of gravity resulting in high pressure. The pressure is so high that when hydrogen atoms collide with enough force they create a new element — helium — in a process called nuclear fusion. The continual nuclear fusion, causes energy to build up and the sun's core!
The chromosphere lies above the photosphere and temperatures range from approximately 11,000 degrees F (6,000 degrees C) nearest the photosphere to about 7,200 degrees F (4,000 degrees C) a couple of hundred miles higher up.
Now here is where things get a little bit strange. Above the chromosphere lies the corona — the outermost layer of the sun's atmosphere. The sun's corona extends thousands of miles above the visible "surface" (photosphere) of the sun. Now you might think that temperatures here must be the lowest here since we are the farthest away from the heat-generating core… but that isn't the case. At all.
The sun's corona can reach temperatures of around 1.8 million degrees F to 3.6 million degrees F (1 to 2 million degrees C), that's up to 500 times hotter than the photosphere. But how is the sun's upper atmosphere hotter than the surface? It's a great question, and one that has scientists rather stumped. There are some ideas about where the energy comes from that heats the corona, but a definitive conclusion is yet to be made. If you'd like to read more about this solar mystery
From time to time, the Sun's Corona releases what is called a Coronal Mass Ejection, An explosion of sorts and when this happens, Earth needs to worry!" - Space.com
"A cannibal coronal mass ejection may be on its way to Earth after a pair of solar eruption-induced CMEs joined forces. Amid those fireworks, Sunspot AR3078 blasted several M-class flares. 'Cannibal' solar bursts may bring auroras as far south as New York! " - Video From Space - Space.com
PLEASE WATCH FULL SCREEN WITH SOUND MODERATE AND Enjoy!
Kerry
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