Particles of light called photons can only travel a few millimeters before they hit another particle in the Sun, are absorbed and then released again. It can take a photon as long as
50 million years
to travel all the way through the radiative zone.
How long does it take a photon to travel through the core?
So while in
eight minutes
, a photon of light can travel the 150 million kilometres from the Sun to the Earth, in that same time, a gamma ray in the Sun’s core will travel only about 13 centimetres.
How long does it take photons to exit 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.
How long is the 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.
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.
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.
Where does a photon go after?
The photon is absorbed by the electron. I.e. the photon ceases to exist, its energy and momentum have to go somewhere (
the electron and the bulk material)
.
How long does it take a photon to travel 1 m?
It is like asking why light takes
1/299,792,458 of a second
to travel 1 metre, when in fact we just find it more convenient to define it as that, rather than use the old definition of a metre as a ten-millionth of the distance from the equator to the North Pole.
How far does a photon travel?
You guessed it, the photons reach
zero distance
and zero time. Photons can take hundreds of thousands of years to travel from the core of the Sun until they reach the surface and fly off into space.
How long does it take for light to travel across a proton?
3.3×10−24s
.
How do photons get through the Sun’s radiation zone quizlet?
Energy is produced through Nuclear Fusion in the core and transported outward in gamma rays. In the Radiative zone,
energy is moved outward in photons of light
. In the convection zone, it travels upwards by convection, rising of hot gas and falling of cool gas.
Where is the radiative zone?
The radiative zone
extends outward from the outer edge of the core to the interface layer or tachocline at the base of the convection zone
(from 25% of the distance to the surface to 70% of that distance). The radiative zone is characterized by the method of energy transport – radiation.
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
.
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 thick is the radiative zone?
| Core Radius of 150,000 km 10,000,000 K | Radiative Zone 300,000 km thick 8,000,000 K | Convective Zone 200,000 km thick 500,000 K | Photosphere 500 km thick 5800 K | Chromosphere 10,000 km thick 4,000 to 400,000 K |
|---|
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
.
How fast do neutrinos travel?
Neutrinos are subatomic particles that have almost no mass and can zip through entire planets as if they are not there. Being nearly massless, neutrinos should travel at nearly the speed of light, which is
approximately 186,000 miles (299,338 kilometers) a second
.
Does a photon take up space?
The answer is
mostly a yes
. While as David says, photons are bosons and therefore do not really have a meaning of “personal space”, the accumulation of the photon’s energy causes another very interesting thing to happen – the spontaneous creation of new particles.
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.
Do photons come from the Sun?
The sunlight is made up of tiny “packets of light” called photons, that originate in the Sun’s core
. The photons are born in a nuclear fusion, when hydrogen cores smash together to make helium. As a byproduct of this reaction, a huge amount of energy is released in the form of photons.
Do photons last forever?
Now, by studying ancient light radiated shortly after the big bang, a physicist has calculated the minimum lifetime of photons, showing that
they must live for at least one billion billion years, if not forever
.
Can a photon be destroyed?
Photons are easily created and destroyed
.
The movement of electrons is responsible for both the creation and destruction of the photons, and that’s the case for a lot of light production and absorption.
How does a photon reach Earth?
Gas molecules absorb the photons and then instantly re-emit them
. When the photons are re-emitted they are sent about the inside of the Earth’s atmosphere in random directions, although the majority of them fly toward Earth’s surface. Gamma-ray mapping of the universe.
