The Spectacular sun
Leon Caskey
Core
This is the inner most part of the Sun. Here gravity has squeezed the Sun so much that hydrogen compresses together to form helium and release energy through nuclear fusion. All the energy that comes away from the Sun and all the reaches the Earth started in the core. The core is around 150 times as dense as water and has a blazing temperature of around 15 million degrees Celsius or 28 million degrees Fahrenheit.
Radiative Zone
This is the layer of the Sun above the super dense core. The density slowly decreases moving away from the core. Light produced by nuclear fusion in the core travels out in the shell called the radiative zone. This layer is not as dense as the core but it is still so dense that light from the core bounces around taking about 100,000 years to move through the radiative zone.
Convection Zone
This is the layer of the Sun above the radiative zone. When the density of the radiative zone becomes low enough energy from the core in the form of light is converted into heat. Much like the bubbles in a pot of boiling, the heat from the edge of the radiative zone rises until it cools enough that it sinks back down. This pattern of heated material rising then cooling happens in big bubbles called convection cells.
Photosphere
The photosphere is the deepest layer of the Sun that we can observe directly. It reaches from the surface visible at the center of the solar disk to about 250 miles (400 km) above that. The temperature in the photosphere varies between about 6500 K at the bottom and 4000 K at the top (11,000 and 6700 degrees F, 6200 and 3700 degrees C). Most of the photosphere is covered by granulation.
chromosphere
The chromosphere is a layer in the Sun between about 250 miles (400 km) and 1300 miles (2100 km) above the solar surface (the photosphere). The temperature in the chromosphere varies between about 4000 K at the bottom (the so-called temperature minimum) and 8000 K at the top (6700 and 14,000 degrees F, 3700 and 7700 degrees C), so in this layer (and higher layers) it actually gets hotter if you go further away from the Sun, unlike in the lower layers, where it gets hotter if you go closer to the center of the Sun.
Corona
The corona is the outermost layer of the Sun, starting at about 1300 miles (2100 km) above the solar surface (the photosphere). The temperature in the corona is 500,000 K (900,000 degrees F, 500,000 degrees C) or more, up to a few million K. The corona cannot be seen with the naked eye except during a total solar eclipse, or with the use of a coronagraph. The corona does not have an upper limit.
Sunspots
temporary phenomena on the photosphere of the Sun that appear visibly as dark spots compared to surrounding regions. They correspond to concentrations of magnetic field flux that inhibit convection and result in reduced surface temperature compared to the surrounding photosphere.esult in reduced surface temperature compared to the surrounding photosphere. Sunspots usually appear in pairs, with pair members of opposite magnetic polarity The number of sunspots varies according to the approximately 11-year solar cycle
Prominence
a large, bright, gaseous feature extending outward from the Sun's surface, often in a loop shape. Prominences are anchored to the Sun's surface in the photosphere, and extend outwards into the Sun's corona. While the corona consists of extremely hot ionized gasses, known as plasma, which do not emit much visible light, prominences contain much cooler plasma, similar in composition to that of the chromosphere. The prominence plasma is typically a hundred times cooler and denser than the coronal plasma. A prominence forms over timescales of about a day, and prominences may persist in the corona for several weeks or months. Some prominences break apart and may then give rise to coronal mass ejections.
Flare
a sudden flash of brightness observed near the Sun's surface. It involves a very broad spectrum of emissions, requiring an energy release energy (roughly the equivalent of 160,000,000,000 megatons of TNT, over 25,000 times more energy than released from the impact of Comet Shoemaker-levy 9 with Jupiter. Flares are often, but not always, accompanied by a spectacular coronal mass ejection The flare ejects clouds of electrons, ions, and atoms through the corona of the sun into space. These clouds typically reach Earth a day or two after the event. The term is also used to refer to similar phenomena in other stars, where the term stellar flare applies.
Aurora
a natural light display in the sky, predominantly seen in the high latitude regions.Auroras are produced when the magnetosphere is sufficiently disturbed by the solar wind that the trajectories of charged particles in both solar wind and magnotspiric plasma, mainly in the form of electrons and protons, precipitate them into the upper atmosphere, thermosperic, exosperic, where their energy is lost. The resulting ionization and excitation of atmospheric constituents emits light of varying colour and complexity. The form of the aurora, occurring within bands around both polar regions, is also dependent on the amount of acceleration imparted to the precipitating particles.