The Sun: TESS and Me!
Hello space geek readers!
My studies over the last few weeks have been pretty intense with the end of my first year fast approaching - I'm amazingly surprised I have managed to survive my first year and equally as surprised how quick it has gone. This first year has been a new and challenging learning curve, and I feel profoundly more knowledgeable then I did this time last year. I now sit and playfully argue with my husband that the earth is not flat and that yes we are all made of stardust.
It amazes me that absolutely everything on this planet, chemicals, animals, plants, rocks, the ground, the atmosphere are completely made up of atoms - all with a certain amount of electrons and protons and its these atoms that make life on earth possible. The science behind it all is simply fascinating. If you have ever watched the Matrix films then this is how I imagine life is, a series of codes that are programmed to do one job and all these codes together make our world work!
My current topic of study is about the Sun and what makes this shine, before now I hadn't really taken any thought to how the sun does shine, I guess I took that great big ball of yellow in the sky for granted, not really realising just how big a part it plays in life on earth.
That great big ball of yellow in the sky is approximately 700,000 km in radius, now that's a pretty big ball! The Earth sits approximately 150,000,000 km from the Sun or in scientific measurements 1 AU (astronomical unit). You may think this is a significant distance but in AU terms its a pretty small distance, but it is just the right distance for life on earth to exist and carry on existing. This ball is also a pretty hot one, with the surface near on 5800 Kelvins in temperature (I'm thinking my 50+ factor sun cream isn't going to protect me here..)
Hands up who knew that the sun has layers?? This was definitely something new to me, here we have the Photosphere, the Chromosphere and the Corona.Check out the below which shows just where these parts are!
Another area I have also been looking at is the composition of the Sun, what is this big ball made up of? Well we cant ever get close enough to reach its surface and take a sample, we would fry within seconds. So how do those in the industry determine what the sun is made up of?
They do this by studying the light it emits, and from this the physical properties of the sun can be determined. Spectroscopy is the name of the process that is used in determining these chemical elements. This is a system whereby the electromagnetic spectrum is used. Those not in the know will probably be wondering what this is..trust me I was in the same boat a few weeks back however now it all is very clear.
Do you remember back when you were at school using prisms or even when you see a rainbow in the sky?
Lets take the rainbow example, you have sunlight and rain which in turn create the pretty rainbow that we are all familiar with. Those raindrops act like prisms and when the sunlight hits those raindrops the raindrops effectively splits the sunlight apart, it splits it into the colours that we are now very familiar with in our rainbow. You see light is made up of many different wavelengths. These different wavelengths have their own codes and tells us something about the object that has emitted that light.
So how does light help us determine what the sun is composed of? Well we on Earth know that different chemical compounds have their own very special signature. The matches that you light, they burn because of the oxygen in the air around you, the colour of that flame...orange. So by recognising this colour signature of different chemical compounds we can identify what the sun is made up of from the different colours that are emitted. We now know that the Sun is 98% made up of hydrogen and helium!
Now we know what the sun is made up of this doesn't answer the question on why it shines, and where its energy actually comes from. My studies are currently explaining the process of nuclear fusion - this is where atoms of an element that have a low mass number combine with another element of a higher mass number and a very reactive explosion sort of happens, this merging creates a lot of energy! Now remember how big we said the sun was? Can you imagine how many atoms are inside? And just how many of these reactions are taking place every second? And imagine just how much energy that is creating! No wonder the sun shines as brightly as it does with all that merging of atoms going on!
On to TESS! This is one exciting piece of news to happen in the past week. NASA launched a new satellite in the week which will survey the Sky's to look at areas where other habitable planets maybe found! Check out the below link to find out more!
https://tess.gsfc.nasa.gov/
Finally to end this weeks blog post, I have a treat for you all! Remember the filming I was doing with the OU last month, well the final edited video went live this past week. So here is me talking about why I chose to study with the OU and what this means to me. My first time on film and if I'm honest I didn't realise just how many "ums" I tend to say when explaining something! Pretty proud of myself doing it though so why not check it out :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=88&v=GshfzkBvgwo
Feel free to leave any comments and Ill come back to you :)
Laters space geeks!
Em
My studies over the last few weeks have been pretty intense with the end of my first year fast approaching - I'm amazingly surprised I have managed to survive my first year and equally as surprised how quick it has gone. This first year has been a new and challenging learning curve, and I feel profoundly more knowledgeable then I did this time last year. I now sit and playfully argue with my husband that the earth is not flat and that yes we are all made of stardust.
It amazes me that absolutely everything on this planet, chemicals, animals, plants, rocks, the ground, the atmosphere are completely made up of atoms - all with a certain amount of electrons and protons and its these atoms that make life on earth possible. The science behind it all is simply fascinating. If you have ever watched the Matrix films then this is how I imagine life is, a series of codes that are programmed to do one job and all these codes together make our world work!
My current topic of study is about the Sun and what makes this shine, before now I hadn't really taken any thought to how the sun does shine, I guess I took that great big ball of yellow in the sky for granted, not really realising just how big a part it plays in life on earth.
That great big ball of yellow in the sky is approximately 700,000 km in radius, now that's a pretty big ball! The Earth sits approximately 150,000,000 km from the Sun or in scientific measurements 1 AU (astronomical unit). You may think this is a significant distance but in AU terms its a pretty small distance, but it is just the right distance for life on earth to exist and carry on existing. This ball is also a pretty hot one, with the surface near on 5800 Kelvins in temperature (I'm thinking my 50+ factor sun cream isn't going to protect me here..)
Hands up who knew that the sun has layers?? This was definitely something new to me, here we have the Photosphere, the Chromosphere and the Corona.Check out the below which shows just where these parts are!
Another area I have also been looking at is the composition of the Sun, what is this big ball made up of? Well we cant ever get close enough to reach its surface and take a sample, we would fry within seconds. So how do those in the industry determine what the sun is made up of?
They do this by studying the light it emits, and from this the physical properties of the sun can be determined. Spectroscopy is the name of the process that is used in determining these chemical elements. This is a system whereby the electromagnetic spectrum is used. Those not in the know will probably be wondering what this is..trust me I was in the same boat a few weeks back however now it all is very clear.
Do you remember back when you were at school using prisms or even when you see a rainbow in the sky?
Lets take the rainbow example, you have sunlight and rain which in turn create the pretty rainbow that we are all familiar with. Those raindrops act like prisms and when the sunlight hits those raindrops the raindrops effectively splits the sunlight apart, it splits it into the colours that we are now very familiar with in our rainbow. You see light is made up of many different wavelengths. These different wavelengths have their own codes and tells us something about the object that has emitted that light.
So how does light help us determine what the sun is composed of? Well we on Earth know that different chemical compounds have their own very special signature. The matches that you light, they burn because of the oxygen in the air around you, the colour of that flame...orange. So by recognising this colour signature of different chemical compounds we can identify what the sun is made up of from the different colours that are emitted. We now know that the Sun is 98% made up of hydrogen and helium!
Now we know what the sun is made up of this doesn't answer the question on why it shines, and where its energy actually comes from. My studies are currently explaining the process of nuclear fusion - this is where atoms of an element that have a low mass number combine with another element of a higher mass number and a very reactive explosion sort of happens, this merging creates a lot of energy! Now remember how big we said the sun was? Can you imagine how many atoms are inside? And just how many of these reactions are taking place every second? And imagine just how much energy that is creating! No wonder the sun shines as brightly as it does with all that merging of atoms going on!
On to TESS! This is one exciting piece of news to happen in the past week. NASA launched a new satellite in the week which will survey the Sky's to look at areas where other habitable planets maybe found! Check out the below link to find out more!
https://tess.gsfc.nasa.gov/
Finally to end this weeks blog post, I have a treat for you all! Remember the filming I was doing with the OU last month, well the final edited video went live this past week. So here is me talking about why I chose to study with the OU and what this means to me. My first time on film and if I'm honest I didn't realise just how many "ums" I tend to say when explaining something! Pretty proud of myself doing it though so why not check it out :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=88&v=GshfzkBvgwo
Feel free to leave any comments and Ill come back to you :)
Laters space geeks!
Em
Great post. Which course is it you're doing again?
ReplyDeleteHi Steve. I am studying Bsc Honors degree in natural sciences - astronomy and planetary science 😁
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