Explorations: An Introduction to Astronomy (Arny), 7th Edition

Chapter 12: The Sun, Our Star

Thought Questions

1
The Sun's corona has a temperature of 1 million K. Why does it not incinerate us?
2
Why is hydroelectric power generation an indirect form of solar power?
3
Why is sailing an indirect form of solar power?
4
Why is it impossible that the Sun might be powered by a chemical process such as the combustion of hydrogen and oxygen to form water?
5
The Sun clearly has a hot interior, and must contain the same kinds of materials as the rest of the Solar System. Why doesn't differentiation produce an iron core at the center as it did in other solar system bodies?
6
What kinds of physics do you think would need to be included in the kind of model used to determine the interior structure of the Sun?
7
Explain why Wien's law can't be used to determine the temperature of a prominence or the corona.
8
What would you expect the solar spectrum to look like if the photons produced by the proton–proton chain were able to exit the Sun without interacting with matter in the rest of the Sun? Would it still be continuous?
9
Because sunspots are a little cooler than the average temperature of the photosphere, they prevent some energy from being released from the part of the surface they occupy, but this energy is usually released from hotter and brighter than average areas nearby. What would happen to the Sun if this did not happen?
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