Showing posts with label Sun. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sun. Show all posts

Saturday, July 26, 2014

Solar Flares


We just learned about Sunspots.

Solar flares are super bright flashes from big explosions on the sun.

If the solar flares are big enough, they can cause problems with some types of computers that try to tell the weather, or send signals across the world.

solar flare
(from: wikipedia - solar flare)


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Stellar Classification

Saturday, July 19, 2014

Sunspots


Sometimes if you look at the sun with the right kind of telescope, you can see dark spots on the sun.

This is caused by the magnetic field around the sun causing problems on the photosphere.

It creates some cold spots no the sun.
The normal temperature of the photosphere is over 10,000 degrees F, and the temperature of the sunspots can get below 5,000 degrees F.

That's still way hotter than Earth, but the difference in temperature makes a dark spot on the sun, and we call that a sunspot.
sunspot
(from: wikipedia - sunspot)


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Canopus

Saturday, July 12, 2014

Solar - Magnetic Field


The magnetic field of the sun is the area outside of the corona in space,
and it is so large that it stretches beyond earth all the way beyond pluto in our solar system.

The magnetic field is like a big cloud with winds that have an effect on all of our planets, and can even cause changes in the weather on earth.

The field swirls around in a circle, and can't be seen but scientists have tried to draw what it might look like.
solar magnetic field
(from: wikipedia - sun)


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Betelgeuse

Saturday, July 5, 2014

Solar - Corona


We've learned about the Sun's core, radiation zone, convection zone and photosphere.
The area outside the surface of the sun is called the corona which comes from the word crown.

Even though the corona is outside the surface of the sun, it is even hotter than the surface!
The photosphere surface is about 10,000 degrees F, and the corona is over 5,000,000 degrees F.
corona
(from: wikipedia - corona)


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Canis Major

Saturday, June 28, 2014

Solar - Photosphere


After the Sun's core, radiation zone and convection Zone comes the last part of the sun on the outside.

The photosphere is the outside shell of the sun, the part that we see that gives light to our planet from space.

The photosphere is super hot, at over 10,000 degrees F.

It is mostly made up of things called granules which are huge bubbles of plasma over 600 miles wide!

The granules rise up from the convection zone, then after about 8 minutes they cool off and go back down to a smaller size.
solar granules
(from: wikipedia - granule (solar physics))


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Sirius

Saturday, June 21, 2014

Solar - Convection Zone


After the Sun's core and the radiation zone comes the Convection Zone.

The convection zone is mostly made up of hydrogen and helium gases and plasma

When the stuff in the convection zone gets heated up from the radiation zone, it moves toward the outside of the sun.

The way that the cooler gases and plasma get heated and move away from the heat is called convection.
convection
(from: wikipedia - convection)


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Planet Alpha Centauri Bb

Saturday, June 14, 2014

Solar - Radiation Zone


We've just learned about the solar core's energy, and how it's the source for the sun's light and heat.

The next part of the sun going out from the core is the radiation zone.

In this part of the sun, the energy is passed between atoms in particles called photons, over and over and it takes around 170,000 years to leave this zone!

When the sun's energy enters the radiation zone it is about 27 million degrees,
and when it leaves the zone it is about 3 thousand degrees.
solar radiation zone
(from: wikipedia - radiation zone)


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Alpha Centauri

Saturday, June 7, 2014

Solar Core - Energy


Let's keep learning about the sun's solar core. We've learned about it's size, heat and density.

The heat that is made at the solar core is because of the energy the core makes using something called fusion.

Remember we learned that atoms are very very tiny things, smaller than the tiniest grain of sand. So small that we can't see them without special super microscopes.
And hydrogen is a type of gas, kind of like the oxygen we breathe.

When hydrogen atoms are smashed together really really hard and fast, fusion can happen, and the hydrogen turns into helium.
When that happens it releases a HUGE amount of energy.

Compared to an explosion from a stick of dynamite, it is over a quintillion times bigger!
A quintillion is a 1 with 18 zeroes after it: 1,000,000,000,000,000,000

That much energy from fusion is created every single second of every day,
and it's what creates the heat and light that keep the sun going.

Just think of it as a whole bunch of tiny little things making huge explosions every second
so that we can stay warm and have sunshine every day.
solar core energy
(from: wikipedia - fusion power)


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Proxima Centauri

Saturday, May 31, 2014

Solar Core - Density


Let's keep learning about the sun's solar core. We've learned about it's size and heat.

Remember before we learned about mass and how a marble and marshmallow may be the same size but one of them is thicker and heavier? That is called density.

The density of the sun is 150 times thicker than water.

marbles
(from: wikipedia - water)


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Constellations - Gemini

Saturday, May 24, 2014

Solar Core - Heat


Let's keep learning about the sun's Solar Core.

The temperature at the core is over 28 million degrees fahrenheit.
A hot summer day on earth is only about 80 degrees, so that's pretty hot!

solar core
(from: wikipedia - heat)


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Constellations - Taurus

Saturday, May 17, 2014

Solar Core - Size


Let's keep learning about the Sun!

We know the sun gives us light and heat, but what's inside of it?

The very center of the sun is called the Solar Core.
Even though it's just the center, it's over 172,000 miles wide, which is over 20 times wider than the Earth!

solar core
(from: wikipedia - solar core)


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Constellations - Orion

Saturday, May 10, 2014

The Sun


We just learned about the Harvest Moon.

We've already learned a lot of things about the Sun.

We know it's in the center of our solar system and the earth orbits around it.

We know it is a GV type of star called a Yellow Dwarf, and we know when the moon gets in front of the sun and we can't see the light that is called a solar eclipse.

The sun is an amazing thing floating out in space, and without it there would be no life on earth.

Even though our summers get really hot and the sun seems very bright, it is 93 million miles away.

That's like driving all the way around the earth almost 4,000 times!
sun
(from: wikipedia - sun)


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Asteroid Belt

Saturday, October 20, 2012

Orbit


We just learned a little about our Solar System.

Let's learn about Orbit!

The earth orbits around the sun, which means that it spins around the sun kind of like the outside of a ferris wheel or merry go round.
It takes one year for the earth to do a full orbit around the sun.
earth orbit
(From: Wikipedia - Solar System)

The moon orbits around the earth, and we see a full moon about every 27 days, almost a whole month.
If there are two full moons in one month, that is called a blue moon.
full moon
(From: Wikipedia - Lunar Month)

The earth spins (rotates) and when it does a full spin around that takes one day.
earth spin
(From: Wikipedia - Earth's Rotation)

Saturday, October 13, 2012

Solar System


Our sun and the planets that spin around it are called our "Solar System"
solar system

There are other stars in the universe that have planets around them called "Planetary Systems", but the word "Solar" is just for our sun.

(From: Wikipedia - Solar System)