The Mysteries of the Sun
Astronomers once thought of the sun and other objects as simple gaseous spheres governed by the basic laws of the universe; gravity, temperature, pressure. In 1939, the hydrogen fusion reactions that powered the sun were discovered, and the detailed model of the interiors of stars all over the universe followed in the 1950s and 60s. One strange fact that lingers inside the heads of all astronomers and scientists is that these stars and our own sun are better known than our own earth. As astronomers looked closer and closer at the intricacies of the Sun, they discovered an enormous, changing body of gas that contained the most unpredictable elements and had literally millions of different factors going into every reaction. With the technology present today though, the Sun may show some of its secrets in the near future. Presently, there are major new instruments on the ground, in the ground, and in the air that may uncover many of the ambiguities of our mother star. These instruments such as the X-ray telescope and the ultraviolet telescope, have given new views to the domains and subsequently new questions have arisen in the world of astronomy. These main questions include the so
Although many astronomers are skeptical to agree with this idea, some think that the neutrinos oscillate between their three different states. These three states (one associated with the electron, one with the muon, and one with the tau particle) are not all detected by the instruments on earth. In fact, the only one that is detected is the electron neutrino. Some of these neutrinos could be changing to another type in their eight-minute journey to the earth from the center of the Sun, escaping detection from the instruments on earth. In order for a neutrino to change states though, a neutrino must at least have a small amount of substance, or rest mass. Neutrinos are assumed to have no mass though in the present theory uniting the electromagnetic force with the weak force that governs neutrino interactions with other particles. The solar neutrino results therefore may require a new physics as some had thought before, superseding the current electro-weak model. If the oscillations tell the actual neutrino mass, (as they should if well observed) this in turn could specify the exact energy at which all the forces of nature become interchangeable. Another unsolved mystery of the Sun is that of how fast it spins. For over three centuries astronomers have known that the photosphere rotates faster at the Sun's equator than at higher latitudes, with a smooth variation in between. The Sun's sidereal rotation period ranges from 25 days at the equator to 27.8 days at the +or- 40 degrees latitude, and even longer at higher latitudes. Helioseismology has recently shown, contrary to expectations, that this differential rotation persists right down to the base of the convection zone,28.7 percent of the way to the center of the sun. The equatorial rotation slows down and the high-latitude rotation speeds up at greater depths though. The two rates then become equal about half way to the center. A little farther in, the rotation appears uniform and independent of latitude; that layer of the Sun rotates like a billiard ball or another solid body. There is absolutely no explanation for this strange rotational structure. One knows that young stars begin their lives spinning rapidly, since they conserve angular momentum while contracting from large interstellar clouds. An older star, like the sun though, has showed with age. Astronomers have assumed for the longest time that magnetic field lines carried out by the stellar wind supply the braking action. They spin with the stars rotation, throwing wind particles sideways from their outer parts. If this is assumed to be correct, the Sun ought to be braked from the outside in, and the interior should be rotating more rapidly than the outer shell. This does not seem to be the case thus far. The picture is confused once one would peer more than halfway down to the center though. Some researchers report that the deep interior is spinning faster than the overlying layers; others find that the core rotates more slowly. Unfortunately, the two parts of a split frequency overlap, and the controversy will probably not be settled until SOHO or GONG obtain very long, uninterrupted stretches of low-noise data. If the Sun's center were just one million degrees cooler, nuclear reactions would slow down and produce fewer neutrinos, resolving the problem. However, this situation would have to be temporary. Heat generated at the Sun's core takes 170,000 years to make it to the surface. If the nuclear reactions remained weak for anywhere near this time, the Sun would eventually cool off. Even after the fine-tuning of interior models of the Sun, astronomers have found t
Some common words found in the essay are:
Observatory Ontario, Sun Earth, Sun Astronomers, EUV X-ray, SOHO GONG, Japanese Alps, Sun Inside, Sun Circulating, solar neutrino, solar wind, center sun, , solar neutrinos, ultraviolet extreme ultraviolet, million-degree corona, cycle magnetic, mass ejections, corona depositing, spectral lines, coronal mass ejections, differential rotation,
Approximate Word count = 2452
Approximate Pages = 10 (250 words per page double spaced)
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