Composition


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Anatomy of the Sun

 * The Sun's core is where energy is generated via thermonuclear reactions creating extreme temperatures deep within the core.
 * The radiative zone is the layer of the Sun where energy moves slowly outward, taking more than 170,000 years to radiate through this zone.
 * The convection zone is where energy continues to move toward the surface through convection currents of heated and cooled gas.
 * The chromosphere is a relatively thin layer of the Sun, sculpted by magnetic field lines that restrain the electrically charged solar plasma. Occasionally larger plasma features, called prominences, form and extend far into the very tenuous and hot corona, sometimes ejecting material away from the Sun.
 * The corona is where ionized elements, within this type of solar atmosphere, glow in x-ray and extreme ultraviolet wavelengths. NASA instruments can image the Sun's corona at these higher energies since the photosphere is quite dim in these wavelength.
 * Coronal streamers are project out of the Sun from flowing the plasma of the corona. They are shaped by magnetic field lines into tapered stream-like forms that extend millions of miles into space.