How the sun shines
23 Aug 2007 1:46:44 UTC
Topic 193066
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Nice article about research at Gran Sasso National laboratory where researchers are detecting, for the first time, the low-energy neutrinos coming from the heart of the sun, pretty much confirming that physicists understand the nuclear activity that makes sunshine...
Underground experiment sheds light on sun
How the sun shines
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There is a good article also on the July/August issue of CERN Courier. But what scares me a little is the size and cost of most modern physics and astronomy research tools, such as LHC, Gran Sasso and other neutrino detectors at the South Pole. I recently saw on Italian TV the first antennas of the Atacama Large Millimeter Array in Chile, which will consist of 66 units for radioastronomy in the millimeter band. I am also thinking of the ITER nuclear fusion reactor facility to be built in France. One good side of those Big Science projects is that they are just too big to be built by one nation alone, and they all are the results of international cooperation, like the ISS. I just watched the perfect landing of the Endeavor (or Endeavour for Brits) and I congratulate NASA. Good work!
Tullio
RE: ...text... I just
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Well, Endeavour is the correct name of the shuttle.
Click my stat image to go to the BOINC Synergy Team site!
This site proposes that the
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This site proposes that the surface of the sun is rocky calcium ferrite.
Is this site a "quack" site or is there some legitimate belief that the sun has a solid surface. The core of the sun is probably so dense that it has to be solid, I am talking more like a surface like the crust of the Earth.
The site also proposes that observations from the Yohkoh satellite look similiar to results Dr. Kristian Birkeland produced in his experiments with an electromagnetic cathode sphere in his lab in the early 1900's. The Dr. basically thought the sun is like a giant iron sphere and it is electrical activity that causes arcs and gamma ray emissions.
RE: This site proposes that
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I ran across that site back in August 2005 and asked about it on this thread. This was back when there were 'plus' and 'minus' buttons to rate a post, so the second and third posts were so people could easily express their opinion (the buttons were deactivated on this forum a while ago). But read the comments of people who posted. Michael Mozina is the fellow who did a lot of work on the site in question... the site has changed a bit since then, but not too much...
What do you think? (about the comments in the previous thread)
RE: This site proposes that
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I should probably read the guy's site more thoroughly, but from what I gathered he doesn't adress any of the following:
1. How does he propose the Sun generates its energy? (3.9e26 W is not a trivial affair - aside from nuclear reactions I really can't see any way)
2. Where does he propose all the iron came from - in other words, how does he propose our Sun was born? (if you say Sun is made of iron you basically say that all models of galaxy and star formation are incorrect - you also invalidate any Big Bang scenario)
3. A follow up question, does he acknowledge the existance of red giants, neutron stars, pulsars, black holes, supernovae, ...? How does he explain those came into existance?
4. And finally, how does he explain the measured neutrino emissions (specifically the ones OP mentioned)?!
Faliure to answer any one of this questions means a BIG hole in his theory (especially with respect to current theories), but I suspect he can't answer not even one. Gas based star formation is really a great unifying notion - if you abandon it I'll be impressed if you can explain anything.
I read through your other
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I read through your other thread on the surface of the sun Chipper Q. Sorry if I repeated the topic, but it is hard to dig through all the threads here! I guess the one post (most easily understood by me) that kind of leans me away from the solid surface is the last post that talks about the density of the sun. Unless we are missing something big, the density calculated makes the solid iron compound theory seem impossible.
This is really interesting. 7
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This is really interesting. 7 years ago I wrote a small program that calculates the dense, pressure and temperature of a white dwarfs. That time it had an assumption that the start consist of a very dense electron gas and the star balances between it's own mass and pressure.
Typical star like our sun balances between mass of it's outer layers and inside radiation that comes from nuclear processes in it's core.
The detection of low-energy neutrinos make us beleive that we had made right assumptions about sun (and I believe other stars) core processes.
But this should be checked at least once again somewhere else before we may believe it.
RE: This is really
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I think that the Borexino detector in the Gran Sasso tunnel has confirmed that the Sun is behaving as expected.
Tullio
This little youtube vid says
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This little youtube vid says the sun shines thanks to quantum tunneling. 4 min vid.. It says the sun is not hot enough to overcome the atomic repulsion forces, but thanks to tunneling, that barrier can be overcome and the nuclei can fuse. It amazes me that any kind of order can come from such quantum chaos.
I saw the video but, AFAIK,
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I saw the video but, AFAIK, the nuclear reactions in the Sun's core are far more complex (e.g. Bethe's carbon cycle). One should not oversimplify too much.
Tullio