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The Sun is a weakly variable star, and its actual luminosity therefore fluctuates. [3] The major fluctuation is the eleven-year solar cycle (sunspot cycle) that causes a quasi-periodic variation of about ±0.1%. Other variations over the last 200–300 years are thought to be much smaller than this. [4]
For example, consider a 10 W transmitter at a distance of 1 million metres, radiating over a bandwidth of 1 MHz. By the time that power has reached the observer, the power is spread over the surface of a sphere with area 4πr 2 or about 1.26×10 13 m 2, so its flux density is 10 / 10 6 / (1.26×10 13) W m −2 Hz −1 = 8×10 7 Jy.
Because energy transport in the Sun is a process that involves photons in thermodynamic equilibrium with matter, the time scale of energy transport in the Sun is longer, on the order of 30,000,000 years. This is the time it would take the Sun to return to a stable state if the rate of energy generation in its core were suddenly changed. [106]
The angular diameter of the Earth as seen from the Sun is approximately 1/11,700 radians (about 18 arcseconds), meaning the solid angle of the Earth as seen from the Sun is approximately 1/175,000,000 of a steradian. Thus the Sun emits about 2.2 billion times the amount of radiation that is caught by Earth, in other words about 3.846×10 26 watts.
Note that = / is defined as the energy flux over a surface, which can be expressed with the momentum flux using = for radiation. Therefore, the rate of momentum transfer from the radiation to the gaseous medium per unit density is κ F r a d / c {\displaystyle \kappa F_{\rm {rad}}/c} , which explains the right-hand side of the above equation.
The relationship is represented by the equation: = where L ⊙ and M ⊙ are the luminosity and mass of the Sun and 1 < a < 6. [2] The value a = 3.5 is commonly used for main-sequence stars. [ 3 ] This equation and the usual value of a = 3.5 only applies to main-sequence stars with masses 2 M ⊙ < M < 55 M ⊙ and does not apply to red giants ...
about 400,000 times as bright as mean full Moon −25.60: star Sun: seen from Mars at aphelion: −25.00: Minimum brightness that causes the typical eye slight pain to look at: −23.00: star Sun: seen from Jupiter at aphelion −21.70: star Sun: seen from Saturn at aphelion −21.00: star Sun: seen from Earth on an overcast midday measuring ...
Solar physics is the branch of astrophysics that specializes in the study of the Sun.It intersects with many disciplines of pure physics and astrophysics.. Because the Sun is uniquely situated for close-range observing (other stars cannot be resolved with anything like the spatial or temporal resolution that the Sun can), there is a split between the related discipline of observational ...