Exam 8: The Sun

The corona is so dim that it is not visible in Earth's daytime sky.

The _____ occurs when some of the energy in the convective motion of gas is converted into magnetic field energy.

The most abundant gas making up the Sun's composition is _______________.

The pink color of the chromosphere is produced by the combined light of three emission lines of hydrogen: ____.

Sunspots tend to occur in groups, or pairs, with the magnetic field around the pair resembling that around a bar magnet.

The Babcock model of the solar magnetic cycle explains the sunspot cycle as primarily a consequence of the Sun's ____.

How many nuclear reactions occur in a proton-proton chain?

What is the approximate average temperature of the Sun's surface?

Astronomers refer to the dark center of a sunspot as a(n) ____

Helioseismology maps of rotation in the Sun's interior show that its internal gases rotate with equal periods.

The images produced by _______________ reveal streamers in the corona that follow magnetic lines of force in the Sun's magnetic field.

The solar wind extends to the _______________ , marking an outer boundary of the Solar System.

In order for nuclear fusion to occur, atomic nuclei must overcome the ____ by colliding violently.

During the first reaction of the proton-proton chain of nuclear fusion, a weak force causes one of the protons to transform into a neutron and emit ____.

The _______________ is a thin layer of gas from which Earth receives most of the Sun's light.

Explain the Babcock model and why the solar cycle should really be considered as a 22-year cycle instead of 11-year cycle.

The magnetic polarities of sunspots _______________ at the end of an 11-year cycle.

The Sun is a ball of hot gas held together by its own gravity.

The Maunder minimum occurred in the 17th century, which many scientists debate the labeling of that time as the "Little Ice Age". However, it occurred before the Industrial Revolution and thus, had no significant impact on the human standard of living as we know in today's society. Suppose the Sun experienced a similar period today. How would life on Earth be impacted?

Why was the Davis experiment only able to detect one-third of the neutrinos originally predicted?