ASTR 209 Lecture Notes - Coronium, Richard Christopher Carrington, Radiography
21 Jan 2013
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Document Summary
The solar model, solar wind, sunspots, the corona. This is a mathematical model (not a plastic scale-model to put on your desk). You start with the idea that the sun is a big ball of hydrogen and helium atoms (i. e. you know what the sun is composed of). You know its mass (using a combination of kepler"s third. The gas is in equilibrium: i will say more about equilibrium later, but for now this means that the core is hot enough to keep the pressure high enough to prevent the sun from shrinking under its own weight. Mass and composition are the details you put into the model. The sun is hot enough (except at the surface) for the h and he atoms to move fast enough, and collide violently enough to knock the electrons of f the h and he atoms. Almost all of the sun is a plasma, a soup of positively-charged nuclei, and negatively charged electrons.
