Slashdot Mirror
Sun Research Yields Unexpected Results
Syberghost writes "There are two major theories about the composition of the Sun. One says that it has similar composition to the planets. The other, that it has enriched levels of oxygen-16. NASA has been doing research on the soil samples Neil Armstrong brought back from the moon, to determine which of those theories is correct. Today, we have the results; they're both wrong. It looks like we're going to have to look more closely at the composition of everything in the solar system to figure this one out."
It's common knowledge that the moon is made of cheese, and we all know that the sun is yellow.
What color is cheese?
There's your connection, right there.
The Moon has no significant protection from an atmosphere or electromagnetic field as does the Earth. As result, it gets hammered by everything from space junk to charged particles kicked out in solar flares. Or, instead of listening to me, you could just go read the article.
They mean a similar composition in terms of the ratios of different isotopes (in this case, oxygen, which has 3 stable isotopes), not that it has a similar composition in terms of which elements make it up.
It's mostly hydrogen; helium makes up around 20-25% of the Sun. Everything other than those two are trace elements.
The stuff in the corona is injected from the photosphere: basically the Sun's visible "surface". There's a lot of convection in the upper layers of the Sun, so apart from the core (where helium "ash" builds up), it's probably reasonably well-mixed.
The sun is a mass of incandescent gas A gigantic nuclear furnace Where hydrogen is built into helium At a temperature of millions of degrees
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/astronom y/stars/lifecycle/
---
According to the latest ruleset, this post should be modded as Vorpal Flamebait +5.