ELEMENTS
OF SUN - SCI & TECH
News:
Aditya L1's mission life
is 5 years; 7 payloads to study Sun: All details
What's
in the news?
●
The Indian Space Research Organisation ambitious
solar mission - Aditya-L1, reached its final destination, a halo-orbit around
the Sun.
Key
takeaways:
●
Located at a distance of roughly 1.5 million km from Earth on the
continuously moving Sun-Earth line around Lagrange
Point 1 (L1), the solar observatory spacecraft will study solar activities
and their effect on space weather.
●
The Lagrange Points are a unique region
between the Earth and Sun, where gravitational
forces reach equilibrium.
Sun
- Facts:
●
The Sun is 4.6 billion years old and has a diameter of 1.39 million
kilometers. It is the largest object in the solar system.
●
The temperature of the core of the Sun is
estimated to be more than 15 million K
due to continuous thermal nuclear reactions while the surface temperature being
6000 K.
●
The Sun accounts for about 99.8% of the total mass of our Solar
System.
Elements
in the Sun:
●
A huge ball of burning gases, and made up
of nearly 73.4% Hydrogen and 25% Helium.
●
The magnetic
field of the Sun is very strong and encircles the whole Solar System.
●
Plasma
is one of the natural states of matter along with solid, liquid, and gas. It
contains ionized gases.
○
It is normally observable in lightning and
electric sparking.
Rotation
of the Sun:
●
The Sun rotates in the counterclockwise direction (considering
the view from a long way above the North Pole of the Earth) and has a rotation
period of 25 days and 9 hours.
●
The Sun shows the phenomenon of differential rotation.
●
At the equator, the surface rotates in
25.4 days and near the poles, it rotates in 36 days. This strange phenomenon
occurs because the outer surface is not solid, and the core is solid. Same
phenomenon occurs in the outer gaseous planets.
Other
Key facts from the Sun:
●
The Sun finds its personification in many mythologies with different words. In Indian
mythology, it finds its name as Surya,
in Greek as Helios, in Romans as Sol, etc.
●
The Sun is nearly at its midlife.
○
Its Hydrogen fuel can sustain for more
than 5 billion years. After that, it will undergo extreme changes and the Earth
will vanish.