Sun

The sun at the heart of our solar system is a yellow dwarf star, a hot ball of glowing
gases. Its gravity holds the solar system together, keeping everything from the
biggest planets to the smallest particles of debris in its orbit. Electric currents in the
sun generate a magnetic field that is carried out through the solar system by the
solar wind a stream of electrically charged gas blowing outward from the sun in
all directions.

The connection and interactions between the sun and Earth drive the seasons,
ocean currents, weather, climate, radiation belts and aurorae. Though it is special to
us, there are billions of stars like our sun scattered across the Milky Way galaxy.

The sun's enormous mass is held together by gravitational attraction, producing

immense pressure and temperature at its core. The sun has six regions: the core,
the radiative zone, and the convective zone in the interior; the visible surface,
called the photosphere; the chromosphere; and the outermost region, the corona.

At the core, the temperature is about 27 million degrees Fahrenheit (15 million
degrees Celsius), which is sufficient to sustain thermonuclear fusion. This is a
process in which atoms combine to form larger atoms and in the process release
staggering amounts of energy. Specifically, in the sun's core, hydrogen atoms fuse
to make helium.

The energy produced in the core powers the sun and produces all the heat and light
the sun emits. Energy from the core is carried outward by radiation, which bounces
around the radiative zone, taking about 170,000 years to get from the core to the
top of the convective zone. The temperature drops below 3.5 million degrees
Fahrenheit (2 million degrees Celsius) in the convective zone, where large bubbles
of hot plasma (a soup of ionized atoms) move upwards. The surface of the sun
the part we can see is about 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit (5,500 degrees Celsius).
That's much cooler than the blazing core, but it's still hot enough to make carbon,
like diamonds and graphite, not just melt, but boil.

Surface

The surface of the sun, the photosphere, is a 300-mile-thick (500-kilometer-thick)

region, from which most of the sun's radiation escapes outward. This is not a solid
surface like the surfaces of planets. Instead, this is the outer layer of the gassy star.

We see radiation from the photosphere as sunlight when it reaches Earth about
eight minutes after it leaves the sun. The temperature of the photosphere is about
10,000 degrees Fahrenheit (5,500 degrees Celsius).

Atmosphere
Above the photosphere lie the tenuous chromosphere and the corona (crown),
which make up the thin solar atmosphere. This is where we see features such as
sunspots and solar flares.

Visible light from these top regions is usually too weak to be seen against the
brighter photosphere, but during total solar eclipses, when the moon covers the
photosphere, the chromosphere looks like a red rim around the sun, while the
corona forms a beautiful white crown with plasma streamers narrowing outward,
forming shapes that look like flower petals.

Strangely, the temperature in the sun's atmosphere increases with altitude,

reaching as high as 3.5 million degrees Fahrenheit (2 million degrees Celsius). The
source of coronal heating has been a scientific mystery for more than 50 years.

Potential for Life

The sun itself is not a place conducive to living things, with its hot, energetic mix of
gases and plasma. But the sun has made life on Earth possible, providing warmth as
well as energy that organisms like plants use to form the basis of many food chains.

Moons

The sun doesn't have any moons; instead, it has planets and their moons, along
with asteroids, comets, and other objects.

Rings

The sun does not have rings.

Magnetosphere

The electric currents in the sun generate a complex magnetic field that extends out
into space to form the interplanetary magnetic field. The volume of space controlled
by the sun's magnetic field is called the heliosphere.

The sun's magnetic field is carried out through the solar system by the solar wind
a stream of electrically charged gas blowing outward from the sun in all directions.
Since the sun rotates, the magnetic field spins out into a large rotating spiral, known
as the Parker spiral.

The sun doesn't behave the same way all the time. It goes through phases of its
own solar cycle. Approximately every 11 years, the sun's geographic poles change
their magnetic polarity. When this happens, the sun's photosphere, chromosphere
and corona undergo changes from quiet and calm to violently active. The height of
the sun's activity, known as solar maximum, is a time of solar storms: sunspots,
solar flares and coronal mass ejections. These are caused by irregularities in the
sun's magnetic field and can release huge amounts of energy and particles, some of
which reach us here on Earth. This space weather can damage satellites, corrode
pipelines and affect power grids.
Exploration

A number of ancient cultures built stone structures or modified natural rock

formations to mark the motions of the sun. They charted the seasons, created
calendars and monitored solar and lunar eclipses.