The Sun

Term Paper Title	The Sun
# of Words	693
# of Pages (250 words per page double spaced)	2.77

The Sun

Ryan Bender
Geology Period-3
10/5/98

     Of all the stars in our galaxy we find our Sun the most important.  For the sun supports life on earth and keeps the planets in a certain "line".Without the sun we could not survive.

History of the Sun
     People have studied the stars since day one.  Many cultures have studied and worshiped the sun.  This was the earliest form of studying the moon. In 1611Galileo, using the telescope that he invented, discovered dark spots on the moon.  Galileo blazed the way for study of the sun.  His observations helped to lead the sun being viewed as an evolving body.  Soon its properties and variations were understood scientifically.  After Galileo the next major discovery of the sun came in 1814.  A German physicist by the name of Joseph von Fraunhofer developed the spectroscope.  This tool is used to beak down light in to wavelengths.  Isac Newton had a mild idea of this in his day, but nothing of this accuracy or detail.  The German Scientist paved the road for theoretical explanations of the star.  Some of the most recent tools that have been invented to help study the sun are the coronagraph, the spectroheliograph, the magnetograph, and the spectrograph.  These tools have enabled us to better understand the magnetic field of the sun and individual characteristics of the sun.                                                 Pictured above is Galileo

Composition of the Sun
     The radiation that Earth receives from the sun is quite remarkable.  The radiation that we receive varies less than 1% over a period of twenty four hours.  However this less than one billionth of the radiation given off by the sun.  This energy comes from deep with in the sun.    The composition of the sun consists of 71percent hydrogen, 27 percent helium, and 2 percent of other heavier elements.  This makes the sun, like others, very volatile
     At the center of the sun we find the density of the sun to be more than 150 times that of water.  For this reason the center of the sun sits at a scorching 29 million degrees Fahrenheit. At this heat hydrogen atoms are under going nuclear fusion.  Nuclear Fusion forces two hydrogen molecules to bond together to make one helium nucleus.  The energy that i...

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