Written and Produced for RU-vid by Denzel Carter Jackson:
Our Entire Solar System in One Hour
Human eyes see only visible light. Visible light comprises all the rainbow colours (sometimes labelled red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet), which, when combined, look white to our eyes. But there are many other invisible forms of light, i.e., the electromagnetic spectrum: radio, microwaves, infrared, ultraviolet, X-rays, and gamma rays. The wavelengths of the various parts of the electromagnetic spectrum differentiate them: radio wavelengths can span kilometres, while gamma-ray wavelengths are smaller than atoms.
Scientists design many instruments to detect infrared, ultraviolet, X-ray, or other wavelengths. These invisible forms of light have no associated colours. So, scientists have their computers assign unusual colors (like neon orange) to their images to allow them to observe details. Above left, scientists have captured a photo of the sun in extreme ultraviolet light, which our eyes cannot detect. The scientists have artificially dyed the ultraviolet data green. We call that "false colour."
Scientific research and discoveries often challenge our perceptions. For instance, scientists have colour-coded the image of Mars on the right to show the methane concentration in the planet's atmosphere. Scientists have marked the highest concentrations of methane in red and the lowest in blue, offering us valuable insights. Many of the images in this collection are likewise false-coloured, a technique that helps us understand complex data. We have tried highlighting which images come from visible light and which represent false colour or colour-coded data, showcasing the importance of these scientific tools and methods.
Our Sun, the Source of Life
The Sun, our very own star, reigns at the heart of our solar system. Scientists classify our sun as a yellow dwarf due to its position on the HR diagram, yet it defies this classification. The human eye perceives it as white, revealing a yellow or orange hue only when Earth's atmosphere scatters its rays during sunrise and sunset. It is now believed to be brighter and larger than approximately 85% of the stars in the Milky Way galaxy, most of which are red dwarfs. The sun's mass accounts for about 99.86% of the solar system's total mass, underscoring its immense significance and inspiring a sense of awe and respect.
The sun consists of hot plasma (a state of matter where electrons have been stripped from their atoms) interwoven with magnetic fields. It has a diameter of about 109 times that.
Earth's size is so great that a million Earths could fit inside it! Its mass accounts for about 99.86% of the solar system's total mass. About three-quarters of the sun is hydrogen; the rest is mostly helium. Less than 2% comprises heavier elements, including oxygen, carbon, gold, iron, etc. Supernova explosions originally forged many of these elements. Therefore, "star stuff" comprises us and everything else in our solar system.
Every second in its core, the sun converts 614 million metric tonnes of hydrogen into 609 metric tonnes of helium. The sun converts the difference into gamma rays, which eventually radiate at the solar surface as lower-energy photons, primarily visible light. The Sun's
The hot atmosphere, called the corona, continuously expands in space, creating the solar wind, a stream of charged particles that extends beyond the solar system. The solar wind forms the heliosphere, a bubble in the interstellar medium, the largest continuous structure in the solar system.
27 апр 2024