StarSimu - The Sun's structure

The Sun's structure

Here below you can see the internal parts of the Sun, the star on which our lives depend.

Solar interior and surface

The innermost part is the core (white coloured), which contains almost half of the solar mass in 1.5 percent of the Sun's volume. The core is the hottest and densiest region of our star, where nuclear reactions take place. These reactions transform hydrogen into helium, producing both light and heat.

The energy produced in the core travels through the next layer of the solar interior, called the radiation zone (light red), and eventually reaches the convection zone (dark red), where energy is transferred mainly by the overturning of solar gases.

The above-mentioned convection produces an everchanging pattern of cells on the Sun's surface, called the granulation pattern. The surface of the Sun is called the photosphere, because it is the layer of the Sun where most of the visible light in the electromagnetic spectrum which reaches the Earth is emitted.

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