So, you like astrophotography. You spend money and time to photograph the many wonders of the universe to try to get the best images you can.
But do you really know what it is that you are photographing?
We are so often caught up in technical details, all worried about using the right equipment and technique, that we may forget the very nature of what we are trying to capture.
Today we introduce a new type of article, to uncover together the nature of the things that keep us up all night.
But let’s begin with a target that is very special to us, the only target that keeps astrophotographers busy photographing in the daytime.
Our Sun.
The Sun, as seen from the Solar Orbiter. (Credit: NASA/ESA)
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What Kind Of Star Is The Sun?
If you like technical jargon, the Sun is cataloged as a G-Type main-sequence star.
For the rest of us, the Sun is a fairly bright star. Actually, it is brighter than about 85% of the star population in the Milky Way, which consists of red dwarfs.
Red dwarfs being the “lightest” and cooler type of stars.
But where does the Sun come from?
Where Does The Sun Come From? A Sneak Peek Into Our Star’s Past
Our story begins some billions of years ago, in a cold, quiet and boring corner on the inner rim of the Orion arm of the Milky Way, about 26,000 light-years away from the galactic center, in one of the many interstellar molecular clouds scattered throughout our galaxy.
And nothing really happens here, until …
The Great Orion Nebula, a large molecular cloud acting as a stellar nursery.
Meanwhile, a nearby massive star that kept burning hydrogen and helium for hundreds of millions of years is about to have a bad day.
Literally.
Iron is beginning to be created inside the star’s core, but Iron cannot be fused inside the core of a star.
As the star cannot fuse the Iron, the nuclear reactions in its core slows down.
In just a single day, the star that shone bright for millions or billions of years collapses on itself under its own gravity.
The outer layers of the star fall back on the dense nucleus with such a tremendous force that they rebound outwards in what is known as a supernova explosion.
An explosion so power to briefly outshine its own entire galaxy.
The Supernova SN1994D, outshining its host galaxy. (Credit: Hubble)
Most of the star’s material is ejected into space with incredible speed and energy and is now rushing towards our placid molecular cloud.
And like a rock thrown in a pond, when the ejected material from the supernova explosion hits our cloud, it sends a series of shockwaves across it, setting things in motion.
Gravity will do the rest. Our Sun is born.
The remaining matter will create the rest of the Solar system: planets, asteroids, and comets, all orbiting the newly born star.
If you want to know more about stars, don’t miss this Stars 101 video from National Geographics.
But nothing is eternal, and the Sun, the solar system, and the life in it are born with an expiration date already set.
Where Is The Sun Going?: A Sneak Peek Into Our Star’s Future
Today the Sun has already shone for about 4.6 billion years now, having happily fused hydrogen and helium for about half of his lifetime.
One day, the Sun too will begin exhausting the hydrogen in its core and it will expand hundreds of times, becoming a red giant.
It will grow so large that its surface will possibly encompass Earth’s orbit, destroying Mercury, Venus, and our planet in the process.
At the end of its life, the Sun will not go supernova: it is not massive enough. Instead, it will shed its outer layers into space, creating a planetary nebula.