The process occurring in a convection zone is similar to boiling water in a pot thus this is sometimes referred to as boiling zone. Outside the radiation zone, the temperature is much lower compared to the temperature within the region. From about 5 million degrees Kelvin, the temperature drops down to only about 2 million degrees Kelvin. However, this temperature is still relatively higher than within the convection region. What happens during the convection mechanism is that the hotter material near the radiation zone tends to rise. When this reaches the top of the convection region, it cools down and sinks again. This is a direct way to transfer energy and thus occurs much faster than in radiation zone.

The convection zone is considered to be the outermost layer of the interior portion of the sun. This layer extends to about 200,000 km up to the visible surface of the Sun known as the photosphere. When seen through a telescope, a white ball with some dark patches can be observed. These dark patches are termed as sunspots. The entire surface of this region is covered with convection cells similar to what one can be observed on the surface of boiling water. The bright and dark regions represent the hot rising and the cold sinking materials respectively.

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There is a vast bubble called the heliosphere in the interstellar medium which surrounds the solar system. This heliosphere is created by the solar winds.

The Sun's extended outer layer called the corona is an area composed of plasma whose temperatures could reach up to over 1 million degrees Celsius. As thermal collisions occur in this region of plasma, the particles contained in the inner corona will have a distribution and range of speeds that can be described by what is termed as a Maxwellian distribution. Particles within the corona can achieve energies that allow them to reach escape velocity and build an electric field that will accelerate ions to escape away from the Sun.

Solar winds are made up of two components. The first are the slow solar winds and the second are the fast solar winds. The slow solar winds are much denser than the fast solar winds. They are also more variable in intensity. Furthermore, they have a more complicated structure with huge scale structures as well as turbulent regions.

Slow solar winds have velocities of about 400 km/s while fast solar winds have velocities of about 750 km/s.

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When these animals are in turn eaten by other animals, the energy stored in them is transferred to up the food chain. Food becomes the source of energy for humans and animals. Energy from the Sun was captured and stored by plants and animals that lived and died millions of years ago. Those plants and animals were changed to coal, oil, and natural gas. These materials, products of the long process of decomposition, are another form of chemical energy. This energy originally came from the energy of the Sun.

Solar energy is now being harnessed as a source of electricity for homes nowadays. It is also used as a source of power to run automobiles and calculators. Solar cells have been produced to use the energy of the Sun. Being the main source of energy on Earth, the Sun also gives off heat and light in form of radiant energy. Radiant energy is energy that travels towards all directions from the source.

The most common form of radiant energy is the use of x-ray. X-rays pass through one’s body and registers on a photographic film. A microwave oven in houses also uses radiant energy in the form of microwave radiation that can cook food in a very short time. Radio, television, and lasers are other forms of radiant energy.

The energy from the Sun is also used by humans to provide the body with Vitamin D for the prevention of rickets, a bone illness and other diseases. The energy on Earth comes from the Sun. This energy is vital to humans, plants, and animals.

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Prominence

It is defined as a large and bright extension from the sun. It extends from the sun’s surface, usually in the shape of a loop. It is found that a prominence is usually starting from the sun’s visible layer called the photosphere, and then extends to the outer layer called the corona. Though the corona is composed of different and extremely hot ionized gases, commonly known as plasma, it does not emit enough visible or radiant light.

Prominences also have much cooler plasma, similar to that in the chromosphere. Furthermore, this phenomenon normally happens and forms over a day’s worth of time. Stable prominences can also take a much longer duration and can also linger for months in the sun’s corona. With too much of this stable prominence, it can also lead to having an event called coronal mass injections, wherein radiant light and gas is ejected from the sun.

Scientists are still studying on the nature and cause of having solar prominences. It has also been discovered that these type of phenomenon can reach different distances and even thousands of kilometers long. So far, the longest solar prominence recorded was sighted by the SOHO or Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, launched into space in the year 1995. The longest recorded solar prominence was in the year 2010, with a distance of 700,000 kilometers. It is roughly the sun’s radius.

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Parallax provides astronomers with a simple method of calculating the distance of many celestial objects. As the Earth revolves around the Sun, celestial objects seem to be located at different positions when observed month after month. When a star is observed during June and December, observers can make use of two different viewpoints or lines of sight to the star to measure the distance. These two lines of sight intersect at the star being observed, forming an angle and half of this angle is the parallax. Typically, the distance is measured in parsecs by getting the inverse of the observed parallax measured in arc seconds.

There are different kinds of parallax, namely, stellar, solar, lunar, diurnal, and dynamic or moving cluster. It is important to keep in mind that parallax decreases with distance and can only be used to measure celestial objects at a maximum distance of 100 parsecs. The use of this concept in astronomy is extended with much precision through the use of the Hipparcos satellite.

Geometric Technique – Parallax

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The interplanetary theory is a specific and established theory in astronomy that means planets are made up of certain elements formed together, and that the space between planets exists. These are mainly made up of atomic particles or substances ejected by the sun through solar winds or other means, and as well as dust particles from asteroids or comets.

Interplanetary space is defined as the space between different celestial bodies or planets. In these, spaces, gases, rocks, and dust particles compose this part of a planetary system.

An interplanetary medium on the other hand, is the raw material of space. It is what fills the solar system of the different components is has, and also fills our own solar system with which bodies of a larger solar system move such as the planets, comets, and the stars. This kind of matter is composed of different materials like space dust, cosmic rays and plasma due to the emission of solar winds coming from the sun.

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Helium is known to be the second lightest and second most abundant element next to Hydrogen. In the periodic table of elements, it heads the noble gas group having the atomic number 2. Helium has the lowest boiling and melting points among these elements. Unlike other elements, it never freezes, down to absolute zero temperature under normal pressure, it remains liquid.

Because this gas is lighter than air and non-flammable, it is used to inflate balloons and airships. More importantly, helium is used in producing rocket fuel condensing hydrogen and oxygen. Other uses include MRI scanner applications, arc welding processes and in producing superconductivity of some metals. Mixing with oxygen, it is used as artificial air for divers and those working under pressure.

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At the boundary of the heliosphere is the heliopause. This is supposed to be about 10 billion miles from the Sun. Its real distance though has not been exactly determined because it varies with the velocity of solar wind and the density of interstellar medium. The heliopause separates the solar system from other interstellar space. It is in this part of the Solar system that the charged particles from the Sun bump into the particles from other stars.

Inside the heliopause is the so-called termination shock. Due to the effect of particles from other stars, the solar wind in this region is slower than the speed of sound. The effect of these particles can cause some changes in the magnetic field, heating and compression. Finally, Heliosheath refers to the region between the heliopause and the termination shock.

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A first quarter flare is a solar flare occurring within the first quarter of the Sun?s 11-year cycle (solar cycle). While the solar cycle is mostly irregular (it can be as short as 9 years or as long as 14 years), it is still commonly divided into 4 cycles with each cycle having 2 years each; with the months varying because of the cycle?s irregularity.

Solar cycles have significant importance in astronomy. For example, predictions of solar flares are important for astronauts out in space. Changes in earth climate and space weather can also be attributed to solar flares.

A first quarter flare usually has less flux than succeeding ones with flares reaching their peak by the last quarter. Flares are classified according to their power and size, and are denoted in watts per square meter (W/m2). These classifications are A, B, C, M, and X; with A being the weakest and X being the strongest. A first quarter flare is usually classified as an A flare.

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It has two extremes: the solar maximum is the period on the cycle where solar activity on the Sun is at its highest, while the solar minimum, on the other hand, is the period where solar activity is at its most quiet, sometimes, even absent. sunspots during the solar maximum stage will be large and will sometimes last for weeks, while sunspots during the solar minimum stage will be short-lived and tiny, They are usually concentrated around the equator as the cycle goes on; no sunspot can be observed above latitudes of seventy degrees.

Starting with the first observed solar cycle in 1745 by Rudolf Wolf as Solar Cycle 1, scientists and astronomers have adapted a system of naming solar cycles. The most recent cycle was Solar Cycle 23, which started in year 2000 and ended in year 2009. The length and magnitude of solar cycles varies, with cycles ranging as short as nine years up to long cycles of fourteen years.

The “deep” solar minimum of 2008 is an example of these variations; the solar minimum lasted unusually long, with 266 days out of the year's 365 days without sunspots- the least number of sunspots recorded since 1913. We are two years into the current cycle, Solar Cycle 24, which started with the solar minimum in 2008. It was predicted that this cycle will be lower in intensity than past solar cycles, making it one of the smallest cycles in the last 200 years.

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