Quick Unbelievable Facts about the Sun

Let’s explore the fascinating world of our nearest star. It’s time we find out how it makes light and heat, and discover its major features. The sun is a star, just like the other stars we see at night. While the other stars we see are light-years away, the distance from the Sun is only about 8 light minutes away from the Earth. Officially, the sun is classified as a G2 type star, based on its temperature and the wavelengths or spectrum of light that it emits. Here are some unbelievable facts about the Sun.

The Parts of the Sun

The sun is composed of gas. It has no solid surface. However, it still has a defined structure. The three major structural areas of the sun are:

Core

It is the center of the sun, comprising 25 percent of its radius.

Radiative Zone

The section immediately surrounding the core, comprising 45 percent of its radius.

Convective Zone

The outermost ring of the sun, comprising 30 percent of its radius. Above the surface of the sun is its atmosphere, which consists of three parts Photosphere, Chromosphere, and Corona.

Watch the video to know the distance to Sun is huge, but we a lot about this closest star –

Features of Sun

Dark, cool areas called sunspots appear on the photosphere. Sunspots always appear in pairs and are intense magnetic fields (about 5,000 times greater than the Earth’s magnetic field) that break through the surface. Here are the layers and features of the sun –

• ­Occasionally, clouds of gases from the chromosphere will rise and orient themselves along the magnetic lines from sunspot pairs. These arches of gas are solar prominences. Prominences can last two to three months and can extend 30,000 miles or more above the sun’s surface.
• Up­on reaching this height, they can erupt for a few minutes to hours and send large amounts of material racing through the corona and outward into space at 600 miles per second. These eruptions are coronal mass ejections.
• Sometimes in complex sunspot groups, abrupt, violent explosions from the sun occur. These are called solar flares. When this radiation and the particles reach the Earth’s magnetic field, they interact with it at the poles to produce the auroras.
• T­he sun has been shining for about 4.5 billion years. The size of the sun is a balance between the outward pressure made by the release of energy from nuclear fusion and the inward pull of gravity. The sun’s functions are complex but, one thing is clear; it is impossible to exist without the sun.

So in this video we covered some facts about the Sun. Check some similar videos from here.