Do you believe that the scientific facts about the Sun are remotely close to being accurate?

Question

How is it even possible to give me facts or even assumptions as to how the Sun works and what it is made out of when it is impossible to get close enough to gather legitimate information about it. How do they know that it is 70% hydrogen, 28% helium and 2% miscellanious matter. One can't make facts about the Sun based on the way the Earth works. It does not seem reasonable to me. I believe that they can tell me the approximate diameter of the Sun and that is it. Not the temperature of the surface or core. Not the mass. Not what the Sun is made of, or how it works. I really believe that everything is based off of facts about the Earth, which is wrong. I believe in most scientific facts, but this is too far-fetched for me. For some reason this is just a question that just popped up in my tiny brain.

Answer 1

The facts about the sun are derived from many scientific theories that are based on facts accumulated on earth. The composition of the sun is based on spectrosopic data. This is where the light is split into various "colors." At increased magnification, lines of light and dark appear. They can tell what a substance is by the light it produces. For example, when sodium is heated to glowing temperatures it puts out light in spectrum and most strongly in a specific wavelengh. By seperating the spectrum of the sun with a prism and a microscope lense, they can tell by how broad the light is at a specific wavelength. This tells us exactly how much of a cetain substance, like hydrogen, is present. Dark lines are caused by the absorption of light by another substance, such as helium light being absorbed by the hydrogen. Thus by studying the spectrum of a glowing object like the sun, they can determine what and how much of a chemical is present. This is backed up by spectrums collected from each substance that was done on earth. The sun also throws out some of its substance in large explosions on its surface called flares. Some of it makes its way here to earth and has been collected by sattelites which back up the spectroscopic measurements of the elements in the sun.

How the sun works is based on evidence coming from studies of gases, gravity and how radiation is produced here on earth. They know how much the sun masses by at least 2 methods I know about. One is by the size of the sun and what it is made of. They also can tell by how fast objects orbit the sun at certain distances. By knowing how much it masses and what it is made of, they know how hard elements at its core are pressed and heated. They have found that it is high enough to generate fusion of the hydrogen into helium. Minor and short lived fusion has been accomplished on the earth so, again, the theory is back up by experience here on earth.

To sum up, we know about the sun because of experiments that have been done on the earth and because the sun does touch us with its heat and light and a little bit of its elements directly.

Answer 2

They are able to determine the composition of the sun using something called spectral analysis.

Every element gives off light at a certain frequency when it is heated. Using this and a special detector you can see what elements are present. An example of this are yellow street lights, they glow yellow because they use sodium compounds to produce the light.

As regards the temperature, you can use things like the doppler effect or again spectral analysis to determine the temperature of body

As regards its mass, if you know the composition of the body and it's size then you can determine the volume of matter in it.
You can also work out the amount of gravity the body will extert on itself and therefore the density of the matter inside. Which will eventually after some further maths will give the mass of the body

So far we have not based anything on the earth.

Answer 3

It's simple. We look at it. Did you ever take a chemistry or physics or astronomy course? Do you remember using one of those spectrum things, where you look at various kinds of light and you can tell, based on the spectrum, what is emitting the light. It's the same deal with the sun. We can see the spectrum of the light given off by hydrogen, and helium, and other elements and figure out their percentages.
Your line of reasoning isn't wild, though. I don't think it is so rediculus to be able to find the mass of the sun, because the sun is close to us, and we can look at it from 360 degrees every year. It is, however, ridiculus that they say they know the mass of the universe. Even if they could determine the mass of everything we can see, what about the stuff we can't see. The problem with astronomy and astrophysics is that is all based on what we can and can't see, which is not a whole lot. I took a college astronomy course last summer, and I'm not sure I agree that most of it can be accepted as fact.
Take, for instance, the idea that the universe is expanding. Our evidence for this is that we see more red than blue, indicating that more objects are moving away from us than towards us. That is not necesarily true. Also, the presence of more red than blue light could indicate the presence of dust.

Answer 4

First of all, you need to calm down. If you have trouble calming down, perhaps you should see a doctor. There are specialists that can help you calm down.

After you do that, or if you decide you can manage your own emotions, consider the nature of human knowledge. The fact that the spectrum of light given off by an object that is hot enough to glow indicates the chemical makeup of the object is a universal reality that is true anywhere in the universe.

From this simple fact, the whole body of science can be derived by which we have accurately detailed the chemical makeup of the sun and other stars, and mapped the sun to determine how the chemical elements are distributed throughout.

These findings have been verified in countless ways, including probes that have gotten close to the sun. Our determination of the sun's makeup and function is not open to question. Please calm down and trust the people who have made a lifetime of studying these things.

Do an internet search on the word "spectroheliograph." Better still, go to the library. You can believe what all science agrees on.

Answer 5

As others have said, the composition is known by the light emitted. And so is the temperature.

The mass is done by determining Newton's law of gravity (physics experiment, pretty easy) and its' mathematical constant. That, and the diameter of the Earth, and the acceleration of all falling bodies at the surface, lets you calculate the mass of the Earth. That, and the time of a year and the distance from the Earth to the Sun lets you calculate the mass of the Sun.

The scientific facts you cite are not controversial at all, they're accepted facts.

Answer 6

Most of them are not "scientific facts" they are common observations that anyone who took notice might have made. Science is not only about seeing things, it is about measuring them as well. That is only a start, but it is the right start. In a few cases the cliamed scientific facts repeat material that had been known for centuries before Muhammad wrote them down. In some case the material claimed to be facts are not, they are technically wrong. I work in a building finished just over 11 years ago. When the elevators are going down, the chime on them goes "bing-bong" When they are going up, they just go "bing". I pointed that out to someone a few years ago. After 7 years in the building they had not noticed that. That gives you some idea of what many people actually notice about their surroundings. Virtually nothing. When someone points out the bleedin' obvious they think the pointer is weird or some kind of genius.

Answer 7

Maybe you don't have any idea how solar physics works? We have quite a few telescopes and satellites studying the sun. There are a lot of books out there that will explain how we know what we know - it's far too long to get into here. Try 'Solarmagnetohydrodynamics' by Eric Preist. It will tell you what you need to know.

Answer 8

With the discovery of nuclear fusion, and along with it the development of nuclear physics during the mid-20th century, it became possible to tabulate vritually every fusion and fission reaction possible. From this information, and combined with hypotheses about star composition, stellar "histories" have been worked out, including visible and measurable properties such as particle emission from the stellar nuclear reactions. For most stars found, there has been excellent agreement between predictions in theory and measurements in fact. For this reason, astrophysicists have an excellent idea of what goes on inside our own sun, and its composition as well as termperature and pressures. Cutting edge analysis of stellar process now include supercomputer simulations on internal convections and turbulence in stars, giving rise to explanations to such things as how supernovas occur. And this is on top of simple spectral analysis which already gives us considerable information on what elements are found in our sun.

My advice to you is, before you diss professionals in this field for "making up stories about things they cannot possibly know about", first research the field and find out how they actually did it. Ignorance is never a defense.

Answer 9

Spectroscopy

Answer 10

yes. Your assumption that it is not possible to know what the sun is made of is just not true. There have been several unmanned solar probes sent, and there is evidence from telescope and spectral studies