The Universe: The Secrets of The Sun

Alfonso, Karla Louise D.                                                              February 22, 2017

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The Universe: The Secrets Of The Sun

        Ninety million miles away from us is the power that shapes our world - the sun. We see it shine in the sky above us but beyond our sight, it’s more active now than it’s been for a decade, sending eruptions of super-heated plasma and vast waves of radiation towards our planet with the potential to disrupt our lives in dramatic ways. If a hollow sun was filled up with spherical Earths then around 960,000 would fit inside. On the other hand if these Earths were squished inside with no wasted space then around 1,300,000 would fit inside. The Sun’s surface area is 11,990 times that of the Earth’s. The documentary depicted the discovery of science and history of this celestial object, through its mysteries –the sun spots to solar eclipses, solar flares to solar storms, and the birth of the sun to its potential death, which makes life on earth possible. It had provided graphic depictions of the sun’s various layers with their importance of projecting energy. The various speakers had illustrated the delicate balance of sun’s magnetic forces and fusion.

This first episode for "The Universe" begins with the mystery of how the sun generates so much energy for such a long period of time, noting how dependent the Earth and entire solar system is on this primary source. Craig DeForest's beach campfire becomes a metaphor for early theories of coal burning in the Sun which quickly proved unsuitable. Then, Holly Gilbert's pool game gets some wicked CGI enhancement until it becomes a metaphor for nuclear fusion. The second chapter is concerned primarily with an in-depth look at the twisted, complex magnetic field lines of the sun, how they are generated by uneven differential plasma rotations, and how they drive the explosive "weather" of the sun. The big sun-quake of 1998 is one of the highlights here. The third chapter focuses on one of the favorite topics of "The Universe", namely Coronal Mass Ejections - also known as solar storms. We get some good details on the limits of the abilities of the Earth's magnetic field to protect us from CME's, and see many of the activities of the NOAA space weather forecasting center in predicting outbursts and warning the public, as well as various things that satellites and power grids can do to minimize the impact. Chapter four focuses on the great solar storm of 1859, how much of our technology was affected then, and how much more technology we have that could be affected were it to happen again today. Also noted are the predictable cycles during which storms and CME's are more likely to happen.

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