Solar Structure

Much like the Earth, the Sun has gaseous layers in both the interior and atmosphere.

SOLAR STRUCTURE
CREDIT: NASA

Particles of light form from atoms undergoing nuclear fusion in the sun’s innermost layer known as the core. The light then flows through the sun’s interior for millennia, slowly bubbling up like water in a boiling pot.

It eventually bursts past the sun’s surface, called the photosphere, and rises into the solar atmosphere. Once in the atmosphere—made up of the chromosphere and corona—the light streams out through the solar system. 

The sun is composed of the five different layers seen in this image. CREDIT: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center
The sun is composed of the five different layers seen in this image. CREDIT: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center
A region of subsurface flow separates the core from the sun's outer shell, the photosphere. CREDIT: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center
A region of subsurface flow separates the core from the sun's outer shell, the photosphere. CREDIT: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center
The chromosphere and corona make up the sun's lower and upper atmosphere, respectively. CREDIT: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center
The chromosphere and corona make up the sun's lower and upper atmosphere, respectively. CREDIT: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

The light that illuminates our planet is made deep inside the sun and takes some 40,000 years to travel through the sun’s layers!

Inside the Sun

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.

Solar Atmosphere

Photosphere

The material that reaches the top of the convection zone cools by giving of light. This region of the Sun is the first part of the Sun that is visible to us and we call it the photosphere. This is where the light we see from the Sun originates. If we could look at the Sun directly (never stare at the Sun without the proper equipment) we would see the photosphere. Even though the layer is not solid we call this part of the Sun the surface and it is also where the solar atmosphere starts. Its temperature is around 5,800 Celsius or 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

 

Chromosphere

Above the photosphere is a layer of the atmosphere about 2,000 km thick called the chromosphere. The temperature increases as you move higher to about 20,000 degrees Celsius (36,032 Fahrenheit) at the top of the chromosphere. The chromosphere is no longer white light like the photosphere but is mostly red in visible light. It can be seen as red flashes during a total solar eclipse.

 

Transition Region

The transition region is the area between the chromosphere and the uppermost layer of the sun’s atmosphere called the corona. The transition region is where the temperature rapidly rises.

 

Latest SDO AIA 4500 Å data - Showing the sun’s surface or photosphere.
Latest SDO HMI Continuum Flattened - Matches visible light photosphere – Photographs of the solar surface, incorporating a broad range of visible light.
Latest SDO HMI Magnetogram - Show maps of the magnetic field on the sun’s surface, with black showing magnetic field lines pointing away from Earth, and white showing magnetic field lines coming toward Earth.
Latest SDO AIA 1700 Å - Shows surface of the sun, as well as a layer of the sun’s atmosphere called the chromosphere, which lies just above the photosphere and is where the temperature begins rising.
Latest SDO AIA 1600 Angstrom – AIA 1600 Å: Shows a mixture between the upper photosphere and the transition region.
Latest SDO AIA 304 Å data - This light is emitted from the chromosphere and transition region.

The Sun’s corona is up to 500 times hotter than the visible surface!! BUT WHY?

Our Sun is surrounded by a jacket of gases called an atmosphere.

Corona

The Sun’s corona is the outermost part of the Sun’s atmosphere. The corona starts around 10,000 km above the solar photosphere. The corona is usually hidden by the bright light of the Sun’s surface. That makes it difficult to see without using special instruments. However, the corona can be viewed during a total solar eclipse.

Unlike the atmosphere of the Earth, the atmosphere of the Sun continues to get hotter as you move away from the solar surface. The answer of why exactly this happens is one of the biggest questions of astronomy and solar physics of the 20th and 21st centuries.

At 20,000-25,000 km away from the solar surface the corona has an average temperature of 1 to 2 million degrees Celsius (1,800,032 to 3,600,032 Fahrenheit). But the density is very low, about 1 billion times less dense than water.

Layers of the Sun
Graphic illustrating the layers of the Sun. Credit: NASA GSFC/Mary Pat Hrybyk-Keith
Latest SDO AIA 094 Å data - This highlights regions of the corona during a solar flare.
Latest SDO AIA 131 Å data - Shows the hottest material in a flaring regions of the corona.
Latest SDO AIA 171 Å data - This wavelength shows the sun’s atmosphere, or corona, when it’s quiet. It also shows giant magnetic arcs known as coronal loops.
Latest SDO AIA 193 Å data - Shows a slightly hotter region of the corona, and also the much hotter material of a solar flare.
Latest SDO AIA 211 Å data - This wavelength shows hotter, magnetically active regions in the sun’s corona.
Latest SDO AIA 335 Å data - This wavelength also shows hotter, magnetically active regions in the corona.