The Sun

This week we went to an astronomy program at an observatory, it was based on the sun. The telescope there was big, but we were told that it was only a twenty four inch mirror versus the European Extremely Large telescope that has a thirty METERS long mirror. The two types of telescopes that we talked about were a telescope with a mirror (reflecting) and a telescope with a lens (refracting). We also learned about sunspots, solar flares, and solar prominences.

Sunspots are relatively cool compared to the rest of the sun, though very hot compared to anything on earth. Sunspots are formed when the suns magnetic field loops out and up.

We actually saw some sunspots when we got to look in one of the telescopes they had at the observatory, they are about the size of earth but looked like pin pricks when we saw them.

Solar flares are basically magnetic energy storms on the sun. They can last for minutes to hours and appear bright on the sun’s surface.

Solar prominences are arcs of gas that extend out through the corona across magnetic field lines. They can explode spewing stuff into space, when this happens it is called a coronal mass ejection.

Solar flares can also cause sunquakes, the sun’s version of earthquakes.

The presentation was really fun and had a lot of information in it. We also learned about the different types of stars. Did you know the smaller a star is the longer it lives?

Also that there is a difference between jam and jelly? The difference is that jam has junks of fruit 🍓or seeds while jelly has none.