The Radiative Zone
Although the photons travel at the speed of light, they bounce so many times through this dense material that an individual photon takes
about a million years
to finally reach the interface layer.
How do photons move in the radiative zone?
Once the photons escape from the core, they travel outward in the radiative zone. Deep in the radiative zone,
the photons collide with plasma particles and change direction in random ways
.
How long does it take a proton to leave the Sun?
So, if you think photons only travel 0.1 millimeters between crashes, it will take
more than half a million years
for the photon to escape the sun. If you think it’s about a centimeter, then it will take about 5,000 years for the photon to get outside the sun.
Why does it take so long to travel through radiative zone?
Energy travels through the radiation zone in the form of electromagnetic radiation as photons. Matter in a radiation zone is so dense that photons can travel only a short distance before they are absorbed or scattered by another particle, gradually shifting to longer wavelength as they do so.
How fast does a photon travel?
The theory of special relativity showed that particles of light, photons, travel through a vacuum at a constant pace of
670,616,629 miles per hour
— a speed that’s immensely difficult to achieve and impossible to surpass in that environment.
What happens radiative zone?
Just outside the Inner Core of the sun at a distance approximately 0.25 to 0.7 solar radii lies the Radiative Zone. This zone
radiates energy through the process of photon emission and capture by the hydrogen and helium ions
.
How long does it take for energy to transfer through convection zone?
The hot material follows a direct path through the convective zone and the energy is transferred much faster than it is by radiation. It takes only
a little more than a week
for the hot material to carry its energy to the top of the convection zone.
What is the difference between the radiative zone and the convection zone?
The Sun’s radiative zone extends from the core outward to about 70% of the Sun’s radius. In a smaller (than the Sun) star that is cooler than our Sun, the convective zone tends to be larger, extending deeper into the star’s interior. Thus
the radiative zone tends to be smaller
.
How far as a percentage does the radiation zone extend to the photosphere?
Above the core is a region known as the radiative zone—named for the primary mode of transporting energy across it. This region starts at about 25% of the distance to the solar surface and extends up to about
70%
of the way to the surface.
Why is it called the radiation zone?
Moving outward, next comes the radiative (or radiation) zone. Its name is
derived from the way energy is carried outward through this layer, carried by photons as thermal radiation
.
How long does it take a photon to escape the radiation zone in the Sun?
Every once in a while a photon will be absorbed. It will later be re-emitted as a photon with less energy; perhaps an X-ray or a UV ray. Eventually, photons along the entire magnetic spectrum exist in the radiative zone. It takes them about
10 million years
to escape.
How long does it take for solar radiation to reach Earth?
Sunlight travels at the speed of light. Photons emitted from the surface of the Sun need to travel across the vacuum of space to reach our eyes. The short answer is that it takes sunlight an average of
8 minutes and 20 seconds
to travel from the Sun to the Earth.
How long does it take for a single photon to random walk or make its way from the Sun to its surface?
The atoms cannot move far, so they cannot transport energy. Photons can transport energy, but rather slowly because they must random walk from the center to the surface. An average photon takes
30,000 years
to get from the center of the sun to the surface.
How hot is the radiation zone?
At the radiation zone this is the site where energy is transported in the form of radiation. Occupying 45% of the radius, the radiation zone has a temperature that is roughly
2-7 million degrees Celsius
.
What takes place in the radiation zone of the Sun?
The radiation zone is the site where
energy transport
occurs. This zone can be characterized as the place where we, the photons, bounce around facilitating the ability for energy to be transported to the outer surface of the Sun. The temperature at the radiation zone ranges from 2 to 7 million degrees Celsius.
Does the Sun have corona?
The corona is the outer atmosphere of the Sun
. It extends many thousands of kilometers (miles) above the visible “surface” of the Sun, gradually transforming into the solar wind that flows outward through our solar system. The material in the corona is an extremely hot but very tenuous plasma.
Can a proton travel at the speed of light?
But applying Feynman’s parton model to lattice QCD requires knowing the properties of a proton with infinite momentum, which means that
the proton particles must all be traveling at the speed of light
.
Why is light the fastest?
Nothing can travel faster than 300,000 kilometers per second (186,000 miles per second).
Only massless particles, including photons, which make up light, can travel at that speed
. It’s impossible to accelerate any material object up to the speed of light because it would take an infinite amount of energy to do so.
How fast can a human go without dying?
This is a well documented field, and the average maximum survivable g-force is about
16g (157m/s) sustained for 1 minute
. However this limit depends on the individual, whether the acceleration is applied to one’s entire body or just individual parts and the time in which the acceleration is endured over.
Where is a radiation zone?
The layer of a star that lies
just outside the core
, to which radiant energy is transferred from the core in the form of photons. In this layer, photons bounce off other particles, following fairly random paths until they enter the convection zone.
How is energy transported in the convection zone?
The convection zone is where energy is transported in gases to the photosphere
through convection currents
. The gas, or plasma, is hottest nearest to the radiative zone and coolest, denser, near the photosphere (outermost layer of the sun). Due to this, the heated gas rises to the surface and the denser gas sinks.
