The Sun’s Size: New Calculations Impacting Our Understanding

KOMPAS.com – New calculations show that the sun is several percent smaller than previously thought, and this could change the way we study it.

So how big is the sun actually according to these new calculations?

Also read: Does the Sun Also Rotate?

The size of the sun is 0.03-0.07 percent smaller

Quoting Live Science, Tuesday (14/11/2023) researchers who measure the sun often use total solar eclipses to block out large amounts of light and get a glimpse of the corona or outer atmosphere.

Using this method, researchers pegged the sun’s radius at around 695,990 kilometers, a measurement that has been accepted as the standard for the size of the sun since the 1970s.

But to truly understand the sun’s physics and atmosphere, more precise measurements are needed.

Because the sun is always moving, waves continually move across its surface and through most of the sun.

Now a new study measuring another type of solar wave oscillation known as p-mode finds that the sun is between 0.03 percent and 0.07 percent smaller than previously thought.

This research, which has not yet been peer reviewed, shows the sun’s radius is 695,780 km and its diameter is 1,391,560 kilometers.

Radius is a line that connects the center of a circle with a point on the circumference of the circle, in this case the sun.

These numbers only differ by a fraction of a percent, but they are important.

Without a precise radius, there is the potential to reach misleading conclusions about the sun’s internal structure.

Also read: Scientists Predict the Death of the Sun in the Next Billion Years

The importance of studying the sun

According to New Scientist, understanding the sun is important not only because the sun is the most easily accessible star and the source of light and heat that makes life possible, but also because magnetic storms from the sun’s surface can affect Earth’s telecommunications.

NASA’s Parker Solar Probe currently orbits seven times closer to the sun than any other spacecraft.

The European Space Agency’s Solar Orbiter, launched in 2020, is also investigating the solar wind and will take the first close-up images of the sun’s polar regions.

The study was published on arXiv.

Also read: Parker Solar Probe, First Spacecraft to Pass Through a Solar Explosion

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2023-11-15 23:33:00
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