The Sun: Structure and Solar Neutrinos

Study Notes

Learning outcomes include the Sun's structure (core, radiative zone, convective zone, photosphere, chromosphere, and corona), nuclear fusion processes in the core, and energy transport through layers.
Further learning outcomes involve analyzing the significance of solar neutrinos in confirming theories about the Sun's energy production, challenges in detecting solar neutrinos, and their contributions to solar physics.
Additional outcomes include understanding the Sun's structure and processes affecting space weather and Earth's environment, and creating an infographic about the Sun's life cycle.
Specific topics include the general structure of the Sun, solar neutrinos, sunspots, prominences and flares, the chromosphere, the corona, helioseismology, and the solar wind.
Solar neutrinos are subatomic particles formed during nuclear fusion in the Sun's core.
The photosphere is the visible surface of the Sun, emitting light.
Sunspots are temporary dark areas on the Sun's surface, caused by magnetic activity.
Sunspots are cooler than their surroundings.
The number of sunspots fluctuates over an 11-year cycle.
Solar prominences are bright arches rising from the outer layers of the Sun's atmosphere due to ionized gas trapped by magnetic arches.
Solar prominences can last from minutes to months.
Solar flares are quick explosions of electromagnetic energy from the Sun, affecting hotness and acceleration of particles.
Flares occur when intense magnetic fields become tangled.
Solar flares disrupt technology, affect satellites and spacecraft, and endanger astronauts.
The largest recorded solar flare occurred on April 2, 2001, observed by SOHO.
The chromosphere sits above the photosphere, with a lower density than Earth's atmosphere, and a temperature near 3,700–8,000 K.
Plasma storms and solar phenomena originate in the chromosphere.
The Corona is the outermost part of the Sun's atmosphere, made of plasma, extending thousands of kilometres above the visible surface.
The corona is hundreds of times hotter than the Sun's surface, reaching millions of degrees.
The corona is visible during a total solar eclipse.
The Parker Solar Probe, in December 2021, became the first spacecraft to encounter and sample the corona.
The solar wind is a stream of charged particles from the corona, travelling at over one million miles per hour.
As the solar wind travels further from the Sun, it becomes thinner.
Above sunspot active regions magnetic disturbances cause loops of magnetic field lines to trap some plasma.