Prominences
The surface of the Sun that we see is known as the photosphere. This is the area where light from the core finally reaches the surface. The photosphere is about 6000 K and glows with white light.
Just above the photosphere, the atmosphere extends for several hundred thousand kilometers. Let's take a closer look at the structure of the Sun's atmosphere.
The first layer in the atmosphere has a minimum temperature, and is located at a distance of about 500 km above the surface of the photosphere, with a temperature of about 4000 K. For a star, this is cool enough.
Chromosphere
The next layer is known as the chromosphere. It is located at a distance of only about 10,000 km from the surface. In the upper part of the chromosphere, temperatures can reach 20,000 K. The chromosphere is invisible without special equipment that uses narrow-band optical filters. Giant solar prominences can rise to an altitude of 150,000 km in the chromosphere.
A transition layer is located above the chromosphere. Below this layer, gravity is the dominant force. Over the transition region, the temperature rises rapidly because the helium becomes fully ionized.
Solar crown
The next layer is the corona, and it extends from the Sun for millions of kilometers in space. You can see the corona during a total eclipse when the lunar's disk is obscured by the moon. The corona temperature is about 200 times hotter than the surface.
While the temperature of the photosphere is only 6,000 K, at the corona it can reach 1-3 million Kelvin. Scientists still do not fully know why it is so high.
Heliosphere
The upper part of the atmosphere is called the heliosphere. This is a bubble of space filled with the solar wind, it extends about 20 astronomical units (1 AU is the distance from the Earth to the Sun). Ultimately, the heliosphere gradually transitions into the interstellar medium.
The shell of gas that surrounds our planet Earth, known as the atmosphere, is made up of five main layers. These layers originate on the surface of the planet, from sea level (sometimes below) and rise to outer space in the following sequence:
- Troposphere;
- Stratosphere;
- Mesosphere;
- Thermosphere;
- Exosphere.
Diagram of the main layers of the Earth's atmosphere
In between each of these five main layers are transition zones called "pauses" where changes in temperature, composition and air density occur. Together with the pauses, the Earth's atmosphere includes a total of 9 layers.
Troposphere: where the weather happens
Of all the layers of the atmosphere, the troposphere is the one with which we are most familiar (whether you realize it or not), since we live at its bottom - the surface of the planet. It envelops the surface of the Earth and extends upwards for several kilometers. The word troposphere means "changing the globe." A very apt name, since this layer is where our daily weather takes place.
Starting from the surface of the planet, the troposphere rises to a height of 6 to 20 km. The lower third of the layer, closest to us, contains 50% of all atmospheric gases. It is the only part of the entire composition of the atmosphere that breathes. Due to the fact that the air is heated from below by the earth's surface, which absorbs the thermal energy of the Sun, the temperature and pressure of the troposphere decrease with increasing altitude.
At the top is a thin layer called the tropopause, which is just a buffer between the troposphere and stratosphere.
Stratosphere: home of the ozone
The stratosphere is the next layer of the atmosphere. It stretches from 6-20 km to 50 km above the earth's surface. This is the layer in which most commercial airliners fly and hot air balloons travel.
Here, the air does not flow up and down, but moves parallel to the surface in very fast air currents. Temperatures rise as you climb, thanks to the abundance of natural ozone (O 3), a byproduct of solar radiation and oxygen that has the ability to absorb the sun's harmful ultraviolet rays (any rise in temperature with altitude in meteorology is known as "inversion") ...
Because the stratosphere has warmer temperatures at the bottom and cooler at the top, convection (vertical movement of air masses) is rare in this part of the atmosphere. In fact, you can view a storm raging in the troposphere from the stratosphere as the layer acts as a convection “cap” through which storm clouds cannot penetrate.
After the stratosphere, there is again a buffer layer, this time called the stratopause.
Mesosphere: middle atmosphere
The mesosphere is located approximately 50-80 km from the Earth's surface. The upper mesosphere is the coldest natural place on Earth, where temperatures can drop below -143 ° C.
Thermosphere: upper atmosphere
The mesosphere and mesopause are followed by the thermosphere, located between 80 and 700 km above the planet's surface, and contains less than 0.01% of all air in the atmospheric envelope. Temperatures here reach up to + 2000 ° C, but due to the strong rarefaction of the air and the lack of gas molecules for heat transfer, these high temperatures are perceived as very cold.
Exosphere: the border of the atmosphere and space
At an altitude of about 700-10,000 km above the earth's surface, there is an exosphere - the outer edge of the atmosphere, bordering on space. Here meteorological satellites revolve around the Earth.
How about the ionosphere?
The ionosphere is not a separate layer, but in fact the term is used to refer to the atmosphere at an altitude of 60 to 1000 km. It includes the uppermost parts of the mesosphere, the entire thermosphere and part of the exosphere. The ionosphere gets its name because in this part of the atmosphere, the radiation from the Sun is ionized when it passes the Earth's magnetic fields on and. This phenomenon is observed from the ground like the northern lights.
Stars are made entirely of gas. But their outer layers are also called the atmosphere.
The Sun's atmosphere begins at 200-300 km. deeper than the visible edge of the solar disk. These deepest layers of the atmosphere are called the photosphere. Since their thickness is no more than one three-thousandth of the solar radius, the photosphere is sometimes conventionally called the surface of the Sun. The density of gas in the photosphere is about the same as in the earth's stratosphere, and hundreds of times less than at the Earth's surface. The temperature of the photosphere decreases to 8000 K at a depth of 300 km. up to 4000 K in the uppermost layers. In a telescope with a high magnification, you can observe the fine details of the photosphere: it all seems to be strewn with small bright grains - granules, separated by a network of narrow dark paths. Granulation is the result of mixing warmer gas streams rising up and colder gas streams descending. The temperature difference between them in the outer layers is relatively small, but deeper, in the convective zone, it is greater, and mixing is much more intense. Convection in the outer layers of the Sun plays a huge role in determining the general structure of the atmosphere. Ultimately, it is convection as a result of complex interaction with solar magnetic fields that is the cause of all the various manifestations of solar activity. The photosphere gradually passes into the more rarefied outer layers of the solar atmosphere - the chromosphere and corona.
The chromosphere (Greek "sphere of light") is so named for its reddish-violet color. It is visible during total solar eclipses as a patchy, bright ring around the black disk of the Moon, which has just eclipsed the Sun. The chromosphere is very heterogeneous and consists mainly of elongated elongated tongues (spicules), giving it the appearance of burning grass. The temperature of these chromospheric jets is 2-3 times higher than in the photosphere, and the density is hundreds of thousands of times lower. The total length of the chromosphere is 10-15 thousand km. The rise in temperature in the chromosphere is explained by the propagation of waves and magnetic fields penetrating into it from the convective zone. The substance heats up in about the same way as if it were happening in a giant microwave oven. The speeds of thermal motion of particles increase, collisions between them become more frequent, and the atoms lose their external electrons: the substance becomes a hot ionized plasma. These physical processes also support the unusually high temperature of the outermost layers of the solar atmosphere, which are located above the chromosphere. Often during eclipses above the surface of the sun, you can observe bizarre shapes "fountains", "clouds", "funnels", "bushes", "arches" and other brightly glowing formations of chromospheric matter. These are the most grandiose formations of the solar atmosphere - prominences. They have roughly the same density and temperature as the chromosphere. But they are above it and are surrounded by the higher, much thinner upper layers of the solar atmosphere. The prominences do not fall into the chromosphere because their matter is supported by the magnetic fields of the active regions of the Sun. Some prominences, having spent a long time without noticeable changes, suddenly explode, as it were, and their substance is thrown into interplanetary space at a speed of hundreds of kilometers per second.
Unlike the chromosphere and photosphere, the outermost part of the Sun's atmosphere - the corona - has a huge extent: it stretches for millions of kilometers, which corresponds to several solar radii. The density of matter in the solar corona decreases with altitude much more slowly than the density of air in the earth's atmosphere. The corona is best observed during the total phase of a solar eclipse. The main feature of the crown is its radiant structure. Coronal rays have a wide variety of shapes: sometimes they are short, sometimes long, sometimes they are straight, and sometimes they are strongly curved. The general view of the solar corona changes periodically. This is due to the eleven-year solar cycle. Both the overall brightness and the shape of the solar corona change. During the epoch of sunspot maximum, it has a relatively rounded shape. When there are few spots, the shape of the crown becomes elongated, while the overall brightness of the crown decreases. So, the sun's crown is the outermost part of its atmosphere, the tenuous and hottest. Let us add that it is also the closest to us: it turns out that it extends far from the Sun in the form of a stream of plasma constantly moving from it - the solar wind. In fact, we live surrounded by the solar corona, although protected from its penetrating radiation by a reliable barrier in the form of the earth's magnetic field.
part of the sun's atmosphere
Alternative descriptionsHeaddress, which is a symbol of monarchical power
Monarch attribute
In Russia until 1917 - a precious head ornament of the ruler as a symbol of princely, royal power
Crowns Caesar
Headdress associated with the famous discovery of Archimedes
Sign of royal dignity
One of the monarchical regalia
Halo around the heavenly body
Tsar's naplobuchka
Royal crown adorned with jewels
Royal headdress
Part of a star's atmosphere
The novel by the Russian writer O. P. Smirnov "North ..."
What is a tiara?
Power symbol on the head
Latin "crown"
Monarch's headdress
The elusive ones brought her back
King's crown
Royal crown
A dress fit for a king
Crowns the king
Constellation South ...
Golden crown
Crown (latin)
The headdress of the king
What the monarch's head is up to
Royal crown
Royal Jeweled Headdress
Crown of His Majesty
Sun crown
Royal chocolate brand
Diadem
Solar "head"
The subject of laying on the king's head
Symbol of monarchical power
... (koruna) scalloped decoration on top of the icon's crown
Monarch hat
Chocolate with a royal name
Precious headpiece
The symbol of royal power
Emperor's crown
Mexican beer
What's on the king's head?
King's hat
Headdress of monarchs
Royal crown adorned with jewels
A jeweled headdress of a palace ceremony
Halo around the heavenly body
G. head jewelry made of gold with expensive stones; this is one of the regalia, accessories of the ruling persons: a crown, a gold rim, arched at the crown, with conventional signs of the degree of owner's dignity. The papal crown is called the tiara. Iron Lombard crown, late sixth century. Charlemagne and Napoleon I were crowned. Treasury, government. Official from the crown, not by election. Crown of the shaft, parapet, military. its upper plane. The crown will belittle. decoration, in the form of a crown; olon. girlish headdress, ribbon. Crown, related to the crown, state, from the treasury, or state. Crowned, crown-shaped, -shaped, made in the form of a crown. To crown someone, to lay the crown on the head of the sovereign for the first time, to perform the solemn church rite of enthronement; to crown the kingdom. -sya, to be crowned; crown yourself. Crowning Wed coronation the performance of this rite; first, meaning actions; the second, in the meaning. events and the celebration itself
Latin "crown"
Royal chocolate brand
The novel by the Russian writer O. P. Smirnov "Severnaya ..."
Solar "head"
What is a tiara
What's on the king's head
King's crown
Leadership headgear is out of place in the republic
Ushanka - from the peasant, but from the tsar?
