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Cross-section of the Sun. Stellar structure models describe the internal structure of a star in detail and make predictions about the luminosity, the color and the future evolution of the star. Different classes and ages of stars have different internal structures, reflecting their elemental makeup and energy transport mechanisms.
This stellar model, technically the spherically symmetric quasi-static model of a star, has stellar structure described by several differential equations derived from basic physical principles. The model is constrained by boundary conditions , namely the luminosity , radius, age and composition of the Sun, which are well determined.
Illustration of different stars' internal structure based on mass. The Sun in the middle has an inner radiating zone and an outer convective zone. The radiative zone is the thickest layer of the Sun, at 0.45 solar radii. From the core out to about 0.7 solar radii, thermal radiation is the primary means of energy transfer. [74]
Stellar evolution is not studied by observing the life of a single star, as most stellar changes occur too slowly to be detected, even over many centuries. Instead, astrophysicists come to understand how stars evolve by observing numerous stars at various points in their lifetime, and by simulating stellar structure using computer models.
While scientists have been learning more and more about our solar system and the way things work, many of our Sun's mechanics still remain a mystery. In advance of the launch of the Parker Solar ...
The Sun's stellar-wind bubble, the heliosphere, a region of space dominated by the Sun, has its boundary at the termination shock. Based on the Sun's peculiar motion relative to the local standard of rest, this boundary is roughly 80–100 AU from the Sun upwind of the interstellar medium and roughly 200 AU from the Sun downwind. [225]
From 0.3 to 1.2 solar masses, the region around the stellar core is a radiative zone, separated from the overlying convection zone by the tachocline. The radius of the radiative zone increases monotonically with mass, with stars around 1.2 solar masses being almost entirely radiative. Above 1.2 solar masses, the core region becomes a convection ...
The Sun's corona is much hotter (by a factor from 150 to 450) than the visible surface of the Sun: the corona's temperature is 1 to 3 million kelvin compared to the photosphere's average temperature – around 5 800 kelvin. The corona is far less dense than the photosphere, and produces about one-millionth as much visible light.