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At any one time, the Sun's surface is covered by about 4 million granules. Below the photosphere is a layer of "supergranules" up to 30,000 kilometres (19,000 mi) in diameter with lifespans of up to 24 hours.
The core contains 34% of the Sun's mass, but only 3% of the Sun's volume, and it generates 99% of the fusion power of the Sun. There are two distinct reactions in which four hydrogen nuclei may eventually result in one helium nucleus: the proton–proton chain reaction – which is responsible for most of the Sun's released energy – and the ...
In solar physics and observation, supergranulation is a pattern of convection cells in the Sun's photosphere. The individual convection cells are typically referred to as supergranules . The pattern was discovered in the 1950s by A.B. Hart [ 1 ] using Doppler velocity measurements showing horizontal flows on the photosphere (flow speed about ...
Its outer layers will be ejected into space, leaving behind a dense white dwarf, half the original mass of the Sun but only the size of Earth. [30] The ejected outer layers may form a planetary nebula, returning some of the material that formed the Sun—but now enriched with heavier elements like carbon—to the interstellar medium. [33] [34]
Illustration of different stars' internal structure based on mass. The Sun in the middle has an inner radiating zone and an outer convective zone. The radiative zone is the thickest layer of the Sun, at 0.45 solar radii. From the core out to about 0.7 solar radii, thermal radiation is the primary means of energy transfer. [74]
The solar mass (M ☉) is a standard unit of mass in astronomy, equal to approximately 2 × 10 30 kg (2 nonillion kilograms in US short scale). It is approximately equal to the mass of the Sun. It is often used to indicate the masses of other stars, as well as stellar clusters, nebulae, galaxies and black holes. More precisely, the mass of the ...
The heliosphere is the magnetosphere, astrosphere, and outermost atmospheric layer of the Sun.It takes the shape of a vast, tailed bubble-like region of space.In plasma physics terms, it is the cavity formed by the Sun in the surrounding interstellar medium.
A planetary core consists of the innermost layers of a planet. [1] Cores may be entirely liquid, or a mixture of solid and liquid layers as is the case in the Earth. [2] In the Solar System, core sizes range from about 20% (the Moon) to 85% of a planet's radius .