Chapter 12 - Quiz
The surface of the Sun is about ______ and the core is about _______.
6000K / 15 million K
The Sun is composed of about ______ and _______ plus 2% other elements.
71% hydrogen / 27% helium
About how long is the solar cycle (evidenced by sunspots)?
11 years
The Sun is about how far from Earth?
150,000,000 km
How do a prominence and a flare differ?
A prominence is a huge plume of glowing gas trapped in the Sun's magnetic field; a flare is a brief, bright eruption in the chromosphere.
What holds the Sun together?
Its gravitational force.
Why are astronomers interested in detecting neutrinos from the Sun?
Neutrinos give information about the nuclear reactions in the Sun's core.
Which of the following is evidence that solar activity affects Earth's climate?
The Maunder minimum - a period of abnormally low sunspot numbers - coincided with abnormally cold northern winters
The Sun produces its energy through
The fusion of hydrogen into helium.
What is the Sun's outermost atmosphere called?
The corona
What is the visible surface of the Sun called?
The photosphere
What is the specific 3-step energy generating process in the Sun called?
The proton-proton chain.
What is solar seismology?
The study of the Sun's interior by analyzing waves in the Sun's atmosphere.
Why do sunspots appear dark?
They are cooler than the surrounding gas.
The sun's energy comes from
the conversion of mass into energy.
