Talk:Sun

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Age of the Sun & its eventual death

Nothing is mentioned on the age of the Sun or when it is going to die —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.184.255.157 (talk) 02:03, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

It is in there. Re read the article's section "life cycle", http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun#Life_cycle. 98.112.76.201 (talk) 14:36, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

Age of sun is left is only 4,24,969 years. as per cycle done .

color and emphasis

I really think its important that we focus on these two things a bit more in the article. Not that I think sections need to be erected, but that certain wordings need to be altered.

First of all, I don't believe that 'white' is a color. Black and white are essentially the 'off' and 'on' state of rods and cones. Black is the lack of light and white is a perception overflow of light. Open and closed, they are only the representation of light & according to modern physics, photons are not color. Photons become entangled with other particles and CARRY the color along with them. Therefore, 'white' isn't a 'color' and the sun is actually YELLOW - GREEN 7 NOT WHITE.

Secondly, I do not believe there is enough emphasis put on the fact that the surface observations of the sun are not advanced enough to determine what lies beneath. If the sun emits photons, it is entirely possible that the photons generate the heat observed from the sun and the fusion is actually cold. We speak of the sun as though it is a burning ball of fire, but the oxygen content is lacking, thought it could be that it is burnt away, it still doesn't change the fact that you would need to penetrate the corona in order to get accurate readings. It very well could be that underneath a fusion layer we could find an condensate ocean, surrounding a ball of ice, that encases a super cooled gas sphere. But, we can not know this for sure, and that is my point. Lawstubes (talk) 02:05, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

Please read white#light. For your second bit, we use reliable sources to determine "emphasis" or whatever - and please read WP:NOTAFORUM. Vsmith (talk) 03:16, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

As Sheldon Cooper reminds us, it could be that inside every black hole there's a little man with a flashlight looking for a circuit breaker. But unlikely. SBHarris 18:41, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Re:"We speak of the sun as though it is a burning ball of fire, but the oxygen content is lacking, thought it could be that it is burnt away,". Erm, the "burning" is nuclear fusion, not oxidation - there isn't, and never was, any oxygen involved. -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 18:44, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

The sound wave and neutrino observations show that the temperature inside the Sun increases from the surface to the core. That would indicate there is not any condensed material deep in the Sun. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.183.170.189 (talk) 17:40, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Archived

Archived as pointless

I've already tried to fix this. The sun doesn't 'emit' light, nor does it have color. Get it right! The sun is technically a 'dark body'! All it does is interact with the surroundings and create waveforms/frequencies that take on the appearance of what we call 'light' or 'color'. The sun does this with friction/heat. In actuality, it is the suns manipulation of the space/time around it that creates the valleys in space/time that allow the pathway light occupies. It is nothing but the suns own mass & the vastness of the rabbit hole (aka the universe) that generate this phenomena, the sun emits nothing but super massive clouds of matter, mostly hydrogen & helium. It's (the sun) TRUE color is most likely BLACK or CLEAR because it does not 'create' light or color, but is part of their INDUCTION from space/time. Pure white light is simply the polar opposite of 'dark/matter' which is something like 'light/in-matter'. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.218.85.222 (talk) 19:25, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

No.--Xession (talk) 19:27, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

go back to school.

color and light are simply the physical function of translating non-physical forces that connect us to other potentially physical bodies. or the sun.

light has no mass and therefore can not be a function of motion, as it does not exist physically. It is an inductive force created within an empty space, a whirlwind. The sun is only half the equation when one is talking about the color of it/the light.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.218.85.222 (talk • contribs) 19:33, 11 February 2011

What Xession said. And while we're on the topic, you're thinking of a black body, not a dark body, and a black body is something which does not reflect light, not does not emit light. As for the Sun not "emitting light", how you can even say that with a straight face is beyond me. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 19:35, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

I'm not going to offer a chemistry or physics lecture on the discussion board of the Sun, but the sun does emit light and it does this by having trillions of trillions of hydrogen and helium atoms in a hightened energy state. A simple observation of such a phenomenon, albeit at a much lesser level of energy, can be seen on Earth easily by looking at neon lights.--Xession (talk) 19:38, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Listen, I don't want to make you think I'm attacking you. But chemistry is different than physics.

But I can say the sun doesn't have color with a straight face, because we are saying it does with a straight face, and that is scientifically retarded to say because it isn't provable scientifically. Until we have better INSTRUMENTS to test these claims, there will be no evidence! So I'm going to speak up and say the contrary.

in a pitch black room, a light bulb is black. Turn it on, and all of a sudden you are given the illusion that the bulbs color has changed, but there is an inherent barrier. The light blinds you to the true color of the bulb.

The light does not stop when the sun sets, so there is no experiment to tell that the sun is actually emitting the light.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.218.85.222 (talk • contribs) 19:49, 11 February 2011

Firstly, this is certainly within the realm of both physics and chemistry; they are not mutually exclusive. Secondly, there are thousands of scientists currently and in the past, that would disagree entirely with you. As such, your claims are to be taken as opinion only and would not and should not be included in an encyclopedia that intends to help any curious person learn about the universe around them. Offering speculation on the topic benefits no one and in actuality, only serves to disrupt and confuse people. Lastly, I'd prefer if this discussion ended, as you are becoming somewhat belligerent. I don't mean to suppress your opinion, nor do I wish to base a counter claim. However, this is not the place to do either. --Xession (talk) 19:53, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Folks! Please do not feed the trolls, nor argue with the mentally disturbed. I'm going to erase this section in a day or two, unless somebody gives me a good reason why it should stay. It does not advance our work here. SBHarris 22:48, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Please, do not erase this. His discussion, while maybe misdirected, is not necessarily trolling. To call him mentally disturbed is rather despicable and really does a disservice to the professionalism that should be maintained on Wikipedia. Do I agree with his point of view, or his actions in conveying it? No, I do not. However, I would never consider his position invalid from an opinionated perspective. He has since ended the discussion, as per my request, and it seems only logical to leave this discussion at that ending point. Lastly, deleting this discussion does nothing to promote discussion on Wikipedia either. In fact, I would rather suggest that it would stifle much of the possible discussion, however misdirected, that could possibly encourage further understanding of a particular topic, either by a confused reader, or by a presumptuous editor.--Xession (talk) 22:56, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

What I'm trying to get across is that there are a few major things that should be incorporated into the page. Most of these tidbits have everything to do with a restructuring of most (IMO) scientific wikipedia pages, but that is a different story. The things that are obvious are that the origin of light in the universe is as yet undefined & the sun is so vast & so far away that the behavior of light and the observation of the sun itself is flawed due to the fact that from our perspective, there is no way to know if our readings are distorted by layers and layers of solar activity.

Simply put, for all we know, the sun could be cold on the surface & only appears to be hot because there are billions or trillions or more layers of fictive activity surrounding the sun, thus making it impossible to tell what the actual temperature is. Furthermore, the behavior of light itself could be a problem, as solar bodies as bright as the sun may only 'appear' to be at the distance they seem to be because of the nature of light & since the sun is the only object like the sun that we are able to observe, questions must naturally arise pertaining the physical location of the sun and how accurate our measurements are.

I do not imply that I believe our entire perception of the sun is wrong, but it is obvious that the wording of this and many other scientific wikipedia pages is far from skeptical. IT is not our duty as editors to promote onesidedness.

furthermore, light itself is an elementary particle. Photons are without mass and charge. Photons only spin. Current physics is telling us that light is not 'emitted' by anything and only exists in all space & all time at once. It is like the classic Einstein interpretation. If you were to accelerate to the speed of light, your mass would become infinite. Light packets knows as 'photons' are simply a 3d interpretation of what light really is & in the case of the sun, are not a product of a celestial body, but are created by an act of perception. That is, that the observation of a particle creates what we call light, and the light itself is simply some kind of cosmic foundation. If we imagine the quantum strong force as a kind of micro-gravity, it is easy to see why 'light' exists. Where the strong force compresses all matter, light escapes and appears to illuminate the darkness that was compressed... This is just my interpretation, but I only present it as a means to an end.

Some pages require polarization.

Fight the urge to attack me like an enemy. There seems to be a lot of that here. To many 'free' workers acting like they deserve some kind of respect they haven't earned & can't earn, not here at least. We're all equals. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.218.85.222 (talk) 16:11, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

I know I may come off like a troll, I'm going to try to keep this as little like a forum as possible. I mean, if someone wants to put a forum code in here for discussion, that would be appreciated, I will if no one has by my next update. I'm going to try to post as much relevant info as I can, but please don't just shrug me off as some kind of nut. I'm not a troll & I'm not going to edit the page until I've presented actual usable citations and we have worked together on how to best present the most recent scientific information pertaining to the sun & light and physics in general. I don't want to give people seizures over all this. It's supposed to be interesting. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.218.85.222 (talk) 16:16, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

As per your point about the lightbulb being black, consider this: It's not black, you just can't see its actual color because there is no light reflecting off of said color. That's why there are different colored lightbulbs you can buy, because when light reflects off something it shows its color. This may seem like elementary stuff, but it seems to be something that got overlooked. Just my input on this argument. 74.32.239.125 (talk) 15:55, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Today's knowledge

Can we add in that this knowledge about the sun is only today's knowledge of astronomy and space and is not confirmed? There is no reason to get children scared about living in the current world and they shouldn't feel they are living on a ticking time bomb. The current knowledge of stellar evolution will more likely change over their lifetime. Sunshinekind (talk) 03:24, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not going to qualify every statement of scientific understanding with "according to current consensus, which might change." (That is implicit.) Nor is Wikipedia written to avoid scaring kids - but if it was, we might first want to address, say, the article on Jeffrey Dahmer. A threat that's about 5.5 billion years in the future is just about the last thing that would need to be "softened." Jeh (talk) 04:09, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

I understand that Wikipedia doesn't need to explain every scientific theory. But from what I know about science (I grew up in a family of scientists) you still need to mention it as a theory (eg Big Bang Theory) as it cannot been scientifically proven as fact. I'm not against all the work astrophysicists have done to try and solve the mystery, I just think the stellar evolution of the sun should be seen as current theory. Just remember once upon a time we used to 'know' the earth was flat - but we were clearly wrong. Sunshinekind (talk) 09:34, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Please can you give a credible source for your claim that scientists published the fact that earth is flat. --Stone (talk) 11:31, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

But we still don't need to explain science on every science-based article, and say stuff like "It's only a theory". If people want to learn about science in general - about how science works, what "theory" means in scientific terms (it doesn't mean "just an idea, not a fact" - gravity is still a "theory", but we're not all going to start floating away any time soon), etc, we have a bunch of more general articles covering all of that - Portal:Science is a good start. -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 11:05, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

To Sunshinekind: Um, science never claims to have "scientifically proven as fact" anything. (Mathematics, yes. Not science.) Theories can be proven false, but not proven true; the best science ever does in that direction is to find more and more evidence that supports a theory and while finding none to reject it. Jeh (talk) 17:07, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the input. I see where you are coming from - I guess I just struggle with the idea of the world not being here one day. Quite sad really, its very beautiful Sunshinekind (talk) 01:40, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

Only at one time will anything in the universe be open to the title of 'fact' This is when or if a unified field theory paired with several thousand years of research yet to come, Reveal the infinite chain of cause and effect on the smallest and largest magnitudes of any perceived force, object or indeed concept. That is to say 'we know it inside and out' And fortunately I for one don't believe this is possible given our fallible, restricted perceptions bore down by our beautifully flawed biology. I'd rather wonder about the cosmos in all it's possibilities than tediously recite its details. peace. (TheGarden1988 07:57 30/5/2011) — Preceding unsigned comment added by TheGarden1988 (talk • contribs) 06:56, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Yes, only God knows the "true facts", but there is no reason why Wikipedia cannot state the best current theories for those of us who not only stand back in wonder and awe but also wish to understand some of the subtleties and complexities. Dbfirs 07:06, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Alterations to observation and effects section

I've removed the parenthesised remark

even though the power per unit area of image on the retina is the same, the heat cannot dissipate fast enough because the image is larger

from the paragraph on observation with optical assistance in the interests of accuracy. The difference in illuminance between binoculars and unassisted viewing is highly variable, but the maximum would be e.g. 7x50s and fully dilated pupils where they are approximately equal. In daylight, or with higher power, or with smaller aperture, the illuminance is always going to be lower than the unassisted view.

I've also commented out the Marsh quote from JBAA. That is a very relevant paper to this article but it does not actually make the point that it is supposed to be reinforcing - it does not even mention binoculars for example. I've only commented it out because hopefully a new home can be found for it but its current placement is misleading. Crispmuncher (talk) 11:05, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

photon travel times in solar radiative zone are wrong

the numbers on the diffusion time of photons within the solar radiative zone are wrong.

they were derived from a wrong assumption.

yes that even happens in physics.

have a look to the references and to

http://www.springerlink.com/content/l256u14247171u67/

someone with the authority, please change it.

thanks

morten

132.230.90.122 (talk) 18:04, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing out this interesting article (doi:10.1023/A:1022952621810). However, the article does not say that the usual numbers for the diffusion time scale of photons are wrong, but that they do not reflect the time scale of energy transfer in the Sun, which is governed by the longer Kelvin-Helmholtz time scale. Spacepotato (talk) 23:39, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

thats correct let me rephrase my statement:

even though the photon diffusion time within the solar radiation zone is of the order of 10^5 years this can not be considered as the time a photon needs to travel through the solar radiation zone (SRZ). in the SRZ photons are in thermodynamic equilibrium with the plasma. hence they diffuse (travel) on a thermal (Kelvin – Helmholtz) time scale to the bottom of the convection zone.

in the wikipedia article it is stated:

"Therefore it takes a long time for radiation to reach the Sun's surface. Estimates of the photon travel time range between 10,000 and 170,000 years.[44]"

in my opinion this is at least missleading. see doi:10.1023/A:1022952621810:

"According to the virial theorem, the total internal energy of a star in hydrostatic equilibrium is of the order of the absolute magnitude of the gravitational energy. As a consequence, the time scales obtained by dividing these two energies by the luminosity are approximately equal – the Kelvin–Helmholtz time. For the Sun the Kelvin–Helmholtz time scale is t_KH ≈ 3×10^7 years. This is the time needed by the star to settle to equilibrium after a thermal perturbation. Since in the solar interior energy is transported by radiation, the time scale associated with radiative transport should be of the same order."

"On the other hand, a photon-diffusion time scale has been estimated as t_d ≈ 1.7 × 10^5 years (Mitalas and Sills, 1992). This is the time photons would need to diffuse in a random walk through the Sun; it is short in comparison to the Kelvin–Helmholtz time. This short time scale could be mistaken for the time scale of energy transport in the Sun; indeed it has been discussed occasionally in the context of how the energy generated in the solar core gets out to the surface (e.g., Lang, 2001). It is the purpose of this note to point out that, due to the large heat capacity of the solar interior, energy transport in the solar interior is in fact governed by the Kelvin–Helmholtz time scale."

i still belive the numbers given in the article are not derived from the correct assumptions. as a compromise i propose something like the following:

Therefore it takes a long time for radiation to reach the Sun's surface. Estimates of the photon travel time range between 10,000 and 30,000,000 years depending on whether a random walk process or thermal diffusion is considered as the driving mechanism of energy transport.[44] & doi:10.1023/A:1022952621810

thanks

morten

132.230.90.122 (talk) 13:36, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

I think that the difference between the two different numbers is as follows. The photon diffusion time assumes that a single photon starts near the center of the Sun and scatters, without being absorbed or emitted, until it reaches the outer edge of the Sun, or, better, the convective zone (see Mitalas & Sills, Bibcode:1992ApJ...401..759M.) In reality though energy transport does not conserve photon number, as one starts with gamma rays with energies on the order of MeV and ends up with much lower-energy photons. So, I don't disagree with the paper doi:10.1023/A:1022952621810, but I think that the longer timescale is relevant to the collective process of energy transport, involving a large number of photons (and matter), and not to an individual photon. Therefore, I would suggest adding something like the following after the sentence in the article "Estimates of the photon travel time range between 10,000 and 170,000 years":

Since energy transport in the Sun is a process which involves photons in thermodynamic equilibrium with matter, the time scale of energy transport in the Sun is longer, on the order of 30,000,000 years. This is the time it would take the Sun to return to a stable state if the rate of energy generation in its core were suddenly to be changed. (reference: doi:10.1023/A:1022952621810)

Spacepotato (talk) 22:40, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

It doesn't help that some people DEFINE "photon diffusion time" in the sun as total thermal energy in the sun, divided by luminosity (total energy output). A ratio that does give something like the Kelvin-Helmholtz time of 30 million years (and is something like how THEY derived it), but I do not think it automatically the mean time for diffusion of an average photon from core to photosphere. At best it gives the THERMAL ENERGY diffusion time, but that is given by the physical size of the Sun and something like the diffusivity-- a function of both thermal diffusion (whether by radiation or not) and heat capacity. The later is the limiting factor, as there's something like 1000 times more total "heat" (thermal energy) than light in the core of the sun (my back of the envelope calculations show something like 10^16 J/m^3 thermal energy at the core but only 10^13 J/m^3 from pure photon gas at 15 million K). So most of the Sun's energy is stored as kinetic energy of plasma particles, not photons. That vast heat capacity buffers any changes in energy output on a 30 million year time scale, so in a sense it doesn't matter how fast photons get out (even if they were the same photons, which as has been pointed out, they are not). SBHarris 05:57, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

Oxygen is a metal?

"The most abundant metal is oxygen (1%)..." I thought the oxygen was not a metal. Witchunter (talk) 17:17, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

To astrophysicists, all elements other than hydrogen and helium are metals. See Metallicity. Spacepotato (talk) 01:33, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Recommend remove this sentence: When expanding the spectrum of light from the Sun, a large number of missing colors can be found.

The sentence is meaningless as it stands, and has bad grammar to boot. It may be intended to state that there are a large number of absorption lines. If so, the sentence should read something like, "There are on the order of X absorption lines in the visible part of the Solar spectrum." —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cosmicjay (talk • contribs) 00:25, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

I've removed the sentence and linked to the article on Fraunhofer lines. Feezo (send a signal | watch the sky) 20:28, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

Replaced the false color image of sun in the lede

Refer to Template_talk:Solar_System_Infobox/Sun#Replaced_the_false_color_image_of_sun. talk section of info box . Dave3457 (talk) 00:45, 16 June 2011 (UTC)