Skip to content
Menu
Meerkat Musings
  • Welcome to Meerkat Musings
  • Meerkat Podcasts
  • Why Meerkats?
  • Formula 1
  • Why I love…
  • What I think…
  • Sci-Fi Analysis
  • Reviews
  • Meerkat Fiction
  • Meerkat Book Reviews
  • Sites Meerkats Like
  • If Meerkats Could…
  • The Meerkat Muse
  • Site Updates
Meerkat Musings

The Sun

Tweet
Follow me

Sun

We owe pretty much everything to the sun. Its influence upon our planet is tremendous, in cultural/religious ways, but also in terms of how it drives almost every key process here on earth. It would be impossible to list them all, so I will list some of the key ones:

  • Photosynthesis. This is the means by which plants use the sun’s energy to produce glucose. Oxygen is a product of this process, and oxygen is obviously very important!
  • Atmospheric Effects: Needless to say, the sun’s energy drives atmospheric processes with its constant bombardment of solar rays.
  • Light: It goes without saying that without light, the world would be a dark place!
  • Heat: The sun provides us with enough heat to keep our water in liquid form and the temperature of the planet at a level we can find comfortable.

What is the sun? How does it work, and how did it come to be?

BokGlob

(a Bok Globule)

Our sun, like virtually all stars, formed out of a molecular cloud or Bok Globule – a gathering of gas and dust that was perturbed by an external event, triggering it to collapse. Gradually, over the course of millions of years, the cloud will reach a critical point where enough mass has concentrated into a single point, and reached a high enough temperature, that the hydrogen at the core begins to fuse into helium.

The entire process is more complicated than that, but that’s basically how our sun formed – and it has continued to fuse hydrogen into helium ever since.

SunDiagram

(this beautiful diagram, from Connor’s Science Lab, shows us how the sun is layered)

 The furnace at our sun’s heart is 150 times denser than liquid water, crams 34% of the sun’s mass into a volume only 0.8% of its volume, and generates 99% of the fusion that gives our sun its power. The temperature of the core is up to 15 million degrees Celsius. For billions of years the sun has maintained a more or less constant rate of fusion reaction, and for billions more it will continue to do so, but not forever…

A Balancing Act

The sun represents an equilibrium between the fusion reaction at its core and the force of gravity that is trying to squeeze the mass of our star tighter and tighter. For as long as the sun has hydrogen at the core to burn, it will continue to be in this state of delicate balance – but eventually the hydrogen will run out. When this happens, gravity will crush the core tighter, until temperatures become high enough for hydrogen fusion to begin again in a shell surrounding the core. This will cause the sun to swell, ultimately engulfing Mercury and Venus, and quite possibly earth. Again, the process is more complex than this, but this basically sums up what we can expect to happen to our star.

The eventual fate of the sun will be to lose its outer layers in a series of pulses, exhibiting tremendous mass loss, until around two-thirds of its mass remains – and much of this will be concentrated at the small, dense core, with a diameter similar to the earth.

Our fate will have been sealed long before any of this. As the sun ages, it will get gradually hotter – even a 1% increase in output will be enough to render life on earth impossible, well before the red giant phase. We won’t have to worry about it.

Back to The Stars Above

The Awakening UK

The Awakening USA

Please like and follow this meerkat!

Facebook
Facebook
fb-share-icon
Twitter
Visit Us
Follow Me
Tweet
YouTube
Follow by Email

Meerkat Comments

  • Football Manager 21: P29 – The Leeds Project Season Five, P1 – or is it? – Meerkat Musings on Football Manager 21 P30: Ups and Downs
  • Football Manager 21 P30: Ups and Downs – Meerkat Musings on Football Manager 21: P29 – The Leeds Project Season Five, P1 – or is it?
  • Football Manager 21 P28 – The Leeds Project: Season Four P2 – Meerkat Musings on Football Manager 21: P29 – The Leeds Project Season Five, P1 – or is it?
  • Football Manager 21: P29 – The Leeds Project Season Five, P1 – or is it? – Meerkat Musings on Football Manager 21 P28 – The Leeds Project: Season Four P2
  • Football Manager 21 P27: The Leeds Project – Season 4, P1 – Meerkat Musings on Football Manager 21 P28 – The Leeds Project: Season Four P2

Meerkat Tweets

Ben BerwickFollow

Ben Berwick
Retweet on TwitterBen Berwick Retweeted
hansmollmanMollie Goodfellow@hansmollman·
17h

has this been done

Reply on Twitter 1383093058850451461Retweet on Twitter 13830930588504514613028Like on Twitter 138309305885045146131909Twitter 1383093058850451461
Retweet on TwitterBen Berwick Retweeted
SelfPubShowcaseSelf-Publishers' Showcase 📚@SelfPubShowcase·
6h

A fallen warrior, together with a small band, must tear down everything his kind holds dear and reshape his people -- or see them utterly destroyed. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08DK71165 #scifi #action #adventure @darth_timon

Reply on Twitter 1383250119328337931Retweet on Twitter 1383250119328337931Like on Twitter 1383250119328337931Twitter 1383250119328337931
darth_timonBen Berwick@darth_timon·
12h

Two beers is enough to transform me into a merry drunk these days.

Reply on Twitter 1383158705496203266Retweet on Twitter 1383158705496203266Like on Twitter 13831587054962032661Twitter 1383158705496203266
darth_timonBen Berwick@darth_timon·
13h

'She can't be reasoned with, she can't be bargained with, and she absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are partying'.#Terminator #mylittlepony

Reply on Twitter 1383154930492538884Retweet on Twitter 13831549304925388841Like on Twitter 13831549304925388843Twitter 1383154930492538884
Retweet on TwitterBen Berwick Retweeted
goldengateblondshauna@goldengateblond·
15h

20 years ago one guy on one plane tried to blow up his boots and now you can’t get on a plane without having your shoes inspected but tell me more about the “slippery slope” of gun restrictions

Reply on Twitter 1383124310680739842Retweet on Twitter 13831243106807398422249Like on Twitter 13831243106807398428953Twitter 1383124310680739842
Load More...

Meerkat Categories

  • Art
  • Books
  • Charity
  • Family
  • Fiction
  • Film
  • Food
  • Football
  • Formula 1
  • Funny
  • Games
  • History
  • Interwebs
  • Music
  • Other Stuff
  • Politics
  • Religion
  • Reviews
  • Sci Fi
  • Science
  • Site News
  • Society
  • Technology
  • TV
  • Uncategorized
  • Weird
  • Work

Meerkat Podcasts

Meerkat Musings
Meerkat Musings
A man (meerkat?) called Ben discusses the world!

Podcast Subscription Menu

  • Visit Website
  • RSS Feed
Star Trek News
by Ben Berwick

My personal observations on the First Contact Day Star Trek news!

Star Trek News
Star Trek News
April 6, 2021
Ben Berwick
Opening Times
April 2, 2021
Ben Berwick
Ducktales
March 25, 2021
Ben Berwick
Football Manager – 28/29
March 25, 2021
Ben Berwick
Trusting Science
March 21, 2021
Ben Berwick
The Leeds Project: Season 1
March 21, 2021
Ben Berwick
Sarah Everard
March 11, 2021
Ben Berwick
Harry & Meghan
March 11, 2021
Ben Berwick
Football Manager – Prem Life
March 7, 2021
Ben Berwick
FM21 – Going Up
February 25, 2021
Ben Berwick
Search Results placeholder
©2021 Meerkat Musings | WordPress Theme by Superbthemes.com