The sun is smiling strangely, what does this indicate?

Have you ever seen the sun smile? Here is a photo of the sun smiling:

This was captured by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory satellite on October 26, 2022, and published on many media and scientific websites in the United States and Britain on the 29th. This "smile" looks very vivid, but it reveals something strange when you look closely. So what does this smile indicate?

We know that the sun is the only star in the solar system. Compared with the earth and other planets, it is a giant with a diameter of 1.392 million kilometers and a mass that accounts for 99.86% of the entire solar system. In other words, the eight planets, hundreds of satellites, dwarf planets, asteroids, comets, dust, etc. in the solar system only account for 0.14% of the total mass.

The huge size and mass make the core of the sun have extremely high temperature and pressure. The extreme conditions cause the hydrogen atoms to be stripped of their outer electrons, and the hydrogen nuclei are squeezed together and continuously fused into helium nuclei. This is called nuclear fusion. The nuclear fusion process has a mass loss of about 0.7%, which is converted into huge energy and emitted in the form of electromagnetic radiation, making the entire sun a huge fireball.

This huge fireball is divided into six layers. Starting from the core, there are nuclear reaction zone, radiation layer, convection layer, photosphere, chromosphere, and corona. The last three layers are collectively called the sun's atmosphere.

The nuclear reaction zone occupies 25% of the entire radius of the sun, which is the center of the core with a diameter of about 350,000 kilometers. It is the nuclear fusion reaction zone. The temperature here is as high as 15 million K and the pressure reaches 300 billion atmospheres. The high temperature and high pressure force hydrogen nuclear fusion to continue. Every second, 600 million tons of hydrogen are converted into 595.8 million tons of helium, and the lost 4.2 million tons of mass are converted into energy.

This energy is enormous. According to Einstein's mass-energy equation E=MC^2, the energy released by the sun per second reaches 3.78*10^26J, which is equivalent to the energy released by the simultaneous explosion of 900 trillion tons of explosives, or the energy released by the simultaneous explosion of 7 trillion Hiroshima atomic bombs.

Where does this energy go? It is gradually transferred from the core of the sun to the surface of the sun, and finally released into space. This process is very complicated. The initial energy is emitted in the form of gamma rays, the highest level of electromagnetic radiation. It passes through a radiation zone about 420,000 kilometers thick and reaches the troposphere. It then passes through a troposphere of about 100,000 kilometers to reach the photosphere.

We know that the order of electromagnetic radiation energy from high to low is: gamma rays, X-rays, ultraviolet rays, visible light, and radio waves. Therefore, the energy of the sun's electromagnetic radiation will continue to decay from the core to the surface of the sun. When it reaches the photosphere, it will be emitted more in the form of visible light. This is why we can see the radiant sun.

The photosphere is very thin, only about 500 kilometers, and is a thin layer of opaque gas, but it determines that the sun has a clear boundary, and all visible light that the human eye can see from the sun is emitted from this layer.

Above the photosphere is the chromosphere, which is about 2,000 kilometers thick. Because there is very little visible light here, only about 1% of the photosphere, this layer is generally not visible to the human eye. Only for a brief moment during a total solar eclipse when the bright light of the photosphere is completely obscured can people see a narrow circle of rose-red at the edge of the corona. That is the chromosphere.

Above the chromosphere is the corona, the outermost layer of the sun's atmosphere, which is millions of kilometers thick. The atmosphere here is relatively thin, with a particle density of about 10^15/m^3, about 1/270 million of the surface atmosphere, but the temperature is extremely high, reaching millions of degrees.

The energy of the electromagnetic radiation from the sun's nuclear fusion decreases layer by layer from the core to the photosphere. The peak of the electromagnetic spectrum transitions from gamma rays in the core to X-rays in the radiation zone, and gradually to visible light in the photosphere. Therefore, the temperature also decreases layer by layer, from 15 million K in the core layer to 7 million K to 2 million K in the radiation layer, and then to 2 million to 6000 K in the troposphere. When it reaches the photosphere, the temperature of the sun is only 6000K to 4000K.

But strangely, in the chromosphere, the temperature of the solar atmosphere rises, gradually rising from 4000K to 100,000K, and then to 1 million K; in the outermost corona, the temperature is as high as millions of K. This strange phenomenon has always puzzled the scientific community. After years of observation and research, many theories have been proposed to explain this phenomenon, but in the end, no conclusion has been reached.

People are looking forward to the Parker Solar Probe launched by NASA in 2017, which will drill into the solar corona in December 2024 to explore the inside of the sun. At that time, the Parker Solar Probe will be only 6 million kilometers away from the solar surface, and will surely obtain more data and image materials to reveal the secrets of the sun.

So, now let’s get back to the topic. What is the sun’s strange smile and what does it indicate?

Simply put, they are just some dark spots on the surface of the sun. Just like a human face is not perfect, with many large and small spots, the sun is not as white and flawless as we see with our naked eyes, but is covered by the dazzling brightness. The sun is a huge plasma ball, with turbulent clouds on its surface and constantly producing "holes". These "holes" appear randomly in all kinds of strange shapes.

The smiling face of the sun released by NASA is just an accidental and random combination of these "holes", and it just happens to be facing the earth.

These "holes" are called coronal holes by scientists. High-temperature charged plasma matter will be ejected from the coronal holes and rush into space at a speed of 2 million kilometers per hour or even higher. This is the solar wind. Sometimes the speed of these solar winds is as high as 800 to 1,000 kilometers per second. When these coronal holes are facing the earth, these charged particles will reach the earth in three to four days and have an impact on the earth's environment.

As for how big the impact will be, it depends on how big the "eyes" or "mouth" of the sun's "smile" is. In other words, the larger the coronal hole, the more plasma material it ejects, and the greater the impact on the Earth's environment.

Astronomers predict that the charged ion wind ejected by the sun's "smile" will collide with the Earth's magnetic field in about three days, which may cause a small magnetic storm, disrupt the operation of satellites in orbit, and bring some fluctuations to the ground power grid. It can be seen that although the sun's "smile" this time is weird, it is just a good-natured joke to amuse humans.

For this reason, Space-Time Communications has created a proverb: "When the sun laughs, humans get scared." I am not exaggerating here, because when humans see the sun "laughing," it actually means that a coronal hole is facing the earth, and the high-energy and high-speed matter ejected from it will reach the earth in three or four days, and many of the human electrical infrastructure may be damaged.

Solar flares are much more powerful than coronal holes. I describe it as "the Earth cannot hold back when the Sun gets angry." In February 2022, a solar wind caused by a flare gave the Earth a head start: On January 29, the U.S. Space Weather Prediction Center detected a strong solar flare and predicted that the material and energy ejected by the Sun would reach the Earth on February 1, possibly triggering a strong geomagnetic storm that could last for several days.

People don't understand why Musk insisted on launching Starlink satellites on February 3rd, risking a possible geomagnetic storm. Perhaps this technology fanatic with the title of Iron Man was too confident, and as a result, the laws of nature taught him a big lesson without mercy. 40 of the 49 Starlink satellites launched by Musk were destroyed by a strong geomagnetic storm.

But in general, the sun has been gentle and kind for hundreds of thousands of years since the emergence of human beings. It has neither laughed nor cried, nor even caught a cold, let alone got angry. Let's imagine that if the sun suddenly got angry one day and ejected a large piece of matter towards the earth, human beings and all the earth's ecology would probably be finished.

The sun is too big, and the earth is only 1/330,000 of the sun's mass and 1/1.3 million of its volume. The earth is next to the sun, like a rapeseed next to a basketball. If the basketball happens to leak a little air when facing the rapeseed, the rapeseed may be blown away.

Therefore, scientists are not only worried about the sun "laughing", but also worried about the sun "angry". Scientists have been working hard to study the nature of the sun, making various solar observation telescopes and launching many solar observation satellites in order to understand the sun's activity mechanism, predict possible changes in the sun earlier, and avoid disasters caused by the sun.

The sun not only breeds and protects life, but it may also destroy life one day. Its every smile and frown affects the survival of humans and all living things. Human civilization and technology are still relatively low. If the sun really gets angry, humans are completely powerless to deal with it.

Therefore, we can only pray that the sun will continue to be as gentle and kind as it has been in the past, so that the only human civilization in the solar system can continue for a longer time.

Some scientists believe that if nature and humans themselves can give themselves 200 years of development space, humanity as a whole will develop to the first level of cosmic civilization, which is called mother-star civilization. At that time, humans will no longer be afraid of various disasters from the earth. If it can last for 5,000 years, humanity as a whole will develop to the second level of civilization, which is called star-level civilization. Humans will be able to fully control and utilize solar energy and will no longer be afraid of the sun's anger.

Can humans survive until that era? What do you think? Welcome to discuss.

This is an original article from Space-Time Communication. Please respect the author’s copyright. Thank you for your understanding and support.