Lesson Outline: The Sun
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Layers of the sun
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Just like the Earth is made up of different layers, the Sun
has layers too. The innermost layer after the core is the
radiation zone, where most of the energy is light. It is so
and dense that light can take thousands of years to get out of
the radiation zone.
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Next is the convection zone, where the energy is mostly heat.
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Convection is the cause of of the granulation appearance of
the sun.
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Bright spots correspond to areas where hot material is
rising.
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Dark spots correspond to where dark material is falling.
crowded
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The Sun's surface is called the photosphere. Just like Earth, the Sun has an atmosphere, but it
isn't made up of air. The Sun's atmosphere has two layers, the chromosphere and the corona,
and they are the areas where energy is streaming out into the solar system on its way to Earth.
The corona is the outermost layer and is about 4 million degrees Fahrenheit (2.2 million degrees
Celsius); it is actually hotter than the chromosphere.