How to describe the Sun's interior?

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SUMMARY

The interior of the Sun can be described as an ideal gas under specific conditions, primarily due to its composition as a plasma dominated by bare hydrogen (H) and helium (He) nuclei. The separation between particles is significant, with distances approximately 1000 times greater than the particle sizes, allowing for ideal gas behavior at solar densities. Nuclear reactions occur primarily in the core, with a low probability of fusion events, which does not significantly affect the overall gas behavior. The pressure within the Sun is predominantly ideal gas pressure, contributing to its stability and complexity.

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  • Understanding of plasma physics and its properties
  • Familiarity with ideal gas laws and conditions
  • Knowledge of nuclear fusion processes, particularly in stellar environments
  • Basic concepts of thermodynamics and statistical mechanics
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  • Research the principles of plasma physics and its implications for stellar interiors
  • Study the ideal gas law and its applications in astrophysics
  • Explore nuclear fusion processes in stars, focusing on the Sun's core reactions
  • Investigate helioseismology and its role in understanding solar interior dynamics
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Astronomers, astrophysicists, students of physics, and anyone interested in stellar dynamics and the fundamental processes governing the Sun's interior.

  • #31
guys and gals

lets please keep this to science and not something bordering on philosophical musings
don't give something that is genderless a gender etc
 
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  • #32
Fervent Freyja said:
Right, so the solar interior could look incredibly beautiful- beyond human imagination. Musical? When we humans refer to that, we mean something so beautiful that we cannot describe it in words. Musical. A machine of complexity. Pleased, to know the unexpected.

Who on this Earth can claim to know the beauty and complexity of the interior within our own star? No one knows exactly how she moves within.

Can anyone please cite the work where the solar interior and all her currents, and numerous forces within, are already mapped and identified?

I suggest you start with Chandrasekhar, S. (1958) [1939]. An Introduction to the Study of Stellar Structure. New York: Dover. ISBN 0-486-60413-6, quite readable, and very well reasoned.
 
  • #33
JMz said:
I suggest you start with Chandrasekhar, S. (1958) [1939]. An Introduction to the Study of Stellar Structure. New York: Dover. ISBN 0-486-60413-6, quite readable, and very well reasoned.

I don't see reason to waste my time reading outdated material. I would rather continue reading updated work. Thanks, though.
 
  • #34
Assuming that reading Chandra were ever wasted time, my point in listing it was to demonstrate just how long the subject of the OP (rather than the surface layers) has been firmly established.
 
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  • #35
JMz said:
I suggest you start with Chandrasekhar, S. (1958) [1939]. An Introduction to the Study of Stellar Structure. New York: Dover. ISBN 0-486-60413-6, quite readable, and very well reasoned.
Fervent Freyja said:
I don't see reason to waste my time reading outdated material. I would rather continue reading updated work. Thanks, though.

It would be very wise of you to read up on the known basics :smile:
It would help stop you from making the really oddball comments you did a few posts ago
Not all info is outdated !

JMz said:
Assuming that reading Chandra were ever wasted time, my point in listing it was to demonstrate just how long the subject of the OP (rather than the surface layers) has been firmly established.
agreed :smile:
 
  • #36
davenn said:
Not all info is outdated !
That's the thing about 19 C. thermodynamics and Newtonian gravity (in the right hands!). :-)
 
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  • #37
davenn said:
It would be very wise of you to read up on the known basics :smile:
It would help stop you from making the really oddball comments you did a few posts ago
Not all info is outdated !

agreed :smile:

Hey! What's wrong with trying to persuade others to see my side and get a little more excited about something? It's urgent- I want to know what the solar interior looks like myself!

Oddball comments, yeah, did you see the poster who happened to sign up for an account just to try and insult me by telling me I live in fantasyland with butterflies! :rolleyes:
 
  • #38
Well, you can be pretty sure the solar interior is quite bright, and the region just below the surface is highly convective, almost like boiling water. It is threaded with magnetic fields which can introduce a lot of interesting plasma effects, like coronal heating. Exactly how it all works is not completely known, but then, it is also not completely known what is happening in a pot of boiling water-- and the latter is much easier to observe!
 
  • #39
Fervent Freyja said:
Hey! What's wrong with trying to persuade others to see my side and get a little more excited about something?

everything, if it is ( and you used the word) fantasy and not science :wink:

Fervent Freyja said:
Oddball comments, yeah, did you see the poster who happened to sign up for an account just to try and insult me by telling me I live in fantasyland with butterflies! :rolleyes:

insults are not good :frown: , but you should also take it as a hint to stay on the straight and narrow in a science forum :smile:

Please, and I can't stress this enough, Don't dismiss older research papers. They are still full of good valid information
We don't dismiss Einstein's work and theories because they are ~ 100 yrs old ... aye ?

Dave
 
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  • #40
Fervent Freyja said:
insult me by telling me I live in fantasyland with butterflies!
There are worse things to live with. :-) But this is PF: reasoned discourse, new data, peer-reviewed publications, and so forth, all ultimately (though not necessarily directly) founded on observations of the natural world, to the greatest extent possible.
 
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  • #41
Fervent Freyja said:
What's wrong with trying to persuade others to ... get a little more excited about something?

And BTW, if you want to see "excited", just wait till we have the next naked-eye-visible supernova, or an incoming radio signal encoding a series of prime numbers! ;-)
 
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  • #42
@JMz
you are a way ahead of me on the theory side of things
PhD in astrophysics ... impressive :smile:
Are you active in any particular field(s) of research?

I'm just a very active amateur astronomer with 50 yrs of experience looking at the skies.
Wonder if you have seen my solar imaging thread
https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/solar-imaging-and-techniques.925656/

will give you an idea of my interests in in solar activity ... I started doing sunspot drawings in the early 1970's and progressed from there

my other major interest is Earth science... often post in the Earth science section of the forum
just missed completing my BSc in geology before leaving New Zealand in 1999 to come to Australia

Dave
 
  • #43
mathman said:
The interior is best described as a plasma. Nuclear reactions are going on all the time.
That sais it all! ...
Thread closed.
(Just kidding! :smile::biggrin::nb):oldbiggrin:)

Edit: Superhot plasma, if I may add ...
 
Last edited:
  • #44
davenn said:
@JMz
Are you active in any particular field(s) of research?

Not in this. I try to stay well informed, that's all. These days, I mostly work in mathematical acoustics/digital signal processing -- which I got into from (a) digital image processing, which I got into from astronomy (all those great images begging for enhancement & analysis) + (b) radio astronomy (all that phase & directionality processing). So it's never far from my mind. :-)

Wonder if you have seen my solar imaging thread
https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/solar-imaging-and-techniques.925656/

will give you an idea of my interests in in solar activity ... I started doing sunspot drawings in the early 1970's and progressed from there
When I read that, I wondered about H-alpha. Two questions there: Why the extreme narrow-band for the filters? I'd have guessed that you could get equally good pix with, say, 1-nm or maybe even 10-nm filters, instead of 0.3-nm. No? And second, what about H-inf, the continuum? I know the atmosphere cuts out near that wavelength, but I thought it still let some through. Or is the continuum just like H-alpha for imaging purposes, except that the filters and optics are more expensive for UV?

my other major interest is Earth science... often post in the Earth science section of the forum
just missed completing my BSc in geology before leaving New Zealand in 1999 to come to Australia

Dave
Also an interest of mine. :-)
 

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