By: Haris Ahmad[1]
This is the first blog of a new series of blogs that I’ll start in which I’ll explain the universe to people who have very little or no knowledge about the universe. I will explain the facts in very simple words and feasible explanations. I will start from the most common phenomena and then eventually explain the complex phenomena because, by that time, you would probably be ready to understand because of your base knowledge which you will gain from the initial few blogs.
In this blog, I will start with the explanation of the Sun and the Solar System. However, we first have to understand what the Solar System is. The Solar System is a gravitationally bound planetary system of the Sun and the objects which orbit it. The statement above is stated by Wikipedia but I’ll explain in simple words about what it means. The Solar System is a system of planets and many other objects that orbit (revolve around) the Sun because the Sun has so much mass (amount of matter) that its gravitational force attracts all of the objects that have a lower mass than it. Hence, celestial bodies such as planets, dwarf planets, asteroids, etc. orbit the Sun making the Solar System.
I will frequently use the word celestial bodies which means any object in space. Furthermore, let's move on to the explanation of the parent of all of the Solar System. It is the object which everyone on Earth knows and it is the Sun. The Greek name of the Sun is Helios. The Sun is a nearly perfect sphere of helium and hydrogen which burns on and creates energy by a process called nuclear fusion. This process is very complex for me to explain in this blog series because I have to keep everything simple in this series; however, I’ll tell you a fact that this process can only take place in a star like the Sun and not at any other place. Moreover, the Sun burns 600 million tons of hydrogen per second and it is still 4.6 billion years old and will burn on until 4.5-5.5 billion years further. Even though Sun provides warmth and energy for life to evolve on our planet Earth, it’s still a deadly partner. The Sun expels harmful radiation that can destroy life but thanks to our planet’s atmosphere, those radiations won’t reach us. The atmosphere is a crucial part of the life of a planet and I’ll come to it later on. Since the Sun is using fuel to power it, it has to come to a stop one day when its fuel will end. In between this process, another process will happen which will cause the Sun to swell and expand into a red giant phase in which it will increase its radius by 256 times the current. After the Sun finishes up everything it has to burn with, it’s core will collapse on it which will cause a humongous explosion. That will mark the end of the Solar System but there is still a few billion years till that will happen. Furthermore, the Sun normally experiences some explosions on its surface which expel high energy particles into space. This is known as solar flares. These flares are so dangerous that they can wipe out all organisms on Earth but thanks to our atmosphere again that nothing will happen to us as these won’t even reach us. However, they still affect us in the way that they temporarily create disruptions in our signal transmission.
Besides, there is a more disruptive phenomenon that the Sun can produce which can blow out the transformers in power grids. This phenomenon is called a coronal mass ejection. According to Wikipedia, a solar storm of 1859 (also known as the Carrington Event) was a powerful geomagnetic storm during solar cycle 10 (1855–1867). A solar coronal mass ejection (CME) hit Earth's magnetosphere and induced the largest geomagnetic storm on record, September 1–2, 1859. This briefly describes how dangerous these ejections are. Whatever the consequences, we have to live with the Sun because we have nothing else that can provide us warmth and energy to live on our planet in the whole universe.
This was the end of this blog. This was the first in its series and I will soon write more blogs to add on to the series. In the next blog, I will explain the inner planets of the Solar System to you in simple words.
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