THE SOUTHWORTH PLANETARIUM
207-780-4249       www.usm.maine.edu/planet
70 Falmouth Street  Portland, Maine 04103
43.6667° N                   70.2667° W
Founded January 1970
          "Heavens on the half shell."


THE DAILY ASTRONOMER
Friday, July 22, 2016
Quiz:  Solar True and False

This is the kind of once-in-a-century summer we experience whenever Mother
Nature is tormented by a guilt complex.      Having realized that our
winters are as prolonged as they are inhumane, MN is attempting to make
amends with the most prodigious outflow of enveloping heat seen this side
of the fifth Dantean circle.   The days with highs in the 80's and 90's are
coming at us so fast and furious one would think they were manufactured in
a panic and then tossed on a conveyor belt.     And, while we appreciate
MN's earnest show of contrition, we'll have to remind her that  a few more
decades of this oppressive furnace weather will be needed to fully assuage
her guilt.

Now some of you are loudly complaining about this protracted heat wave and
you yearn for the arrival of autumnal crispness and nights cooled by
northern winds.   Well, you guys belong in prison.

In honor of this weather and, of course, of Mother Nature,  we offer this
rapid fire true or false quiz about the Sun which, we are glad to say,
loves us all.

TRUE OR FALSE

1.  "Helium" was so named because it was first discovered through spectral
analysis of Sunlight.  The word "helium" was derived from Helios, the Greek
Sun God.

2.  The Sun will explode as a supernova in about 5 billion years.

3.  The Sun is so large that more than two million Earths could fit inside
it.

4.  The Sun is yellow.

5.  The Sun generates energy by fusing hydrogen into helium within its core.

6.  The Sun can only appear at the zenith (directly overhead) between the
Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn.

7.  The Sun is a dwarf star.

8. Sunspots do not appear at random.  Instead, they are concentrated
generally between the latitude bands 30 degrees N and 30 degrees S.

9.  The Sun rotates faster at its equator than it does at its poles.

10. Because the moon is moving away from Earth at a rate of about 4 cm per
year, total solar eclipses will not occurring in about 50 million years.


ANSWERS

1.  TRUE!

2.  FALSE!
The Sun is not massive enough to explode as a supernova.  Eventually -in
about 6.5 billion years, it will become white dwarf surrounded by an
quickly expanding supernova.

3.  FALSE!
The Sun is indeed quite large.  However, it could only accommodate about
1.2 million Earth-sized planets.

4. FALSE!
The Sun appears yellow because of our atmosphere.  If you saw the Sun in
outer  space it would actually appear somewhat white.    The Sun produces
energy along the entire spectrum, with the greatest amount of energy in the
green portion of the spectrum.

5.  TRUE!
The Sun is a nuclear furnace.  Presently, the Sun is generating energy by
fusing hydrogen into helium.   This process produces copious energy.

6. TRUE!
While the actual zenith point extends just slightly above the Tropic of
Cancer and just below the Tropic of Capricorn due to atmospheric
refraction, the region between the tropics is the only place on Earth where
the Sun can occupy the zenith.

7.  TRUE!
The Sun is known as a "yellow dwarf star," even though we've already
determined that it isn't actually yellow.

8.  TRUE!

9.   TRUE!
The rotation rate at the Sun's equator is once every 25 days, but near the
poles, it rotates once every 35 days.

10. FALSE!
Astronomers believe that total solar eclipses will continue for another 600
million years or, perhaps, even longer.