RANDY L. PHELPS
This is the Sun Web Assignment
1. For this assignment, please look through the "lecture"
notes for the Sun. These notes
contain the material, in condensed form, that I will expect you to become familiar
with. I am sure you will have questions about the material, especially since it is
presented in the form of lecture notes. To help you fill in the blanks, I have added
web links in the lecture notes that you can follow, in order to gain further insight into
the material.
2. Additionally, you should do the Sunspot Lab nearly every day until
the specified date. It is important that you do this exercise nearly every
day! Not Available This Semester
Upon completing
this assignment, you should be comfortable with the following material:
- What are the important layers of the Sun, and what features occur in
each?
- Why are magnetic fields important on the Sun?
- How does the Sun affect us here on the Earth?
- What is the mechanism that gives rise to the Sun's energy, and how/why it
works.
Upon completing
this assignment, you should be able to answer these, and similar questions
General
Concepts
- What layer do you see when you look (carefully!) at the Sun?
- How do sunspots relate to magnetic fields?
- Why are sunspots dark?
- What observation indicates that the Sun rotates differentially?
- Why can the Sun rotate differentially?
- Does the Sun rotate faster at its poles, or at its equator?
- How can one tell how quickly the Sun rotates?
- Sunspots increase and decrease in number over what time period?
- What regions of the Sun are considered to be the solar
"atmosphere"?
- What are solar prominences and solar flares?
- Which is more energetic, solar flares or solar prominences?
- Gas in the Sun's corona is very hot, which means it has high energy.
What part(s) of the electromagentic spectrum would be most useful in order to study
it?
- What are coronal holes? How are they related to the solar wind?
- What is the Solar wind?
- What effect does the solar wind have on the Earth (and other planets)?
Why is the effect most visible near the poles?
- What regions of the Sun are considered to be the solar
"interior"?
- Where in the Sun do thermonuclear reactions occur?
- How do temperature and density vary as you move the center to the outer
layers of the Sun?
- How does E=mc2 tell us how energy is produced when converting
Hydrogen into Helium?
- What are the basic steps in the proton-proton chain? i.e., Understand the
process by which the Sun generates energy. Specifically know about the
important reasons why it occurs, what "products" are produced and the steps that
are involved.
- Why does energy production occur in the sun? i.e., why can nuclear
reactions actually occur?
Applications
- From Wien's law and the temperature of the Sun's "surface",
what color should the Sun be?
These questions, and similar ones, will form the basis of the exam
material for this section of the course. If you have problems with the material,
please see me. If you are unable to answer some of the questions, I will help
you before the date specified on the syllabus, provided you show me the results of your
inquiry into the material.
That is, you must provide me the answers you
we able to obtain for all questions, including your attempts at problem questions, before
I will help you with any of them!
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