The Sun is an almost perfectly symmetric yellow dwarf star [spectral class G2V] which is at the center of our Solar System.

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7
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2answers
202 views

Why don't we see solar and lunar eclipses often?

Since we see the new moon at least once in a month when the Moon gets in between of the Sun and the Moon at the night and as far as I know if this happens during the day, you'll get to see a solar ...
1
vote
2answers
317 views

Nuclear decay rate affected by sun and quantum randomness

If nuclear decay rate were affected by sun, then emission probabilities would be subject to sun state and its influence, so quantum randomness would depend on it, Would it still be truly random? One ...
22
votes
4answers
2k views

Why is a new moon not the same as a solar eclipse?

Forgive the elementary nature of this question: Because a new moon occurs when the moon is positioned between the earth and sun, doesn't this also mean that somewhere on the Earth, a solar eclipse ...
5
votes
2answers
229 views

Is dark matter really present around the sun?

Recently I read an article that there is dark matter around the sun but if it is so, than why can we see it clearly. If it is called matter than it shall show some hindrance in radiation we receive ...
1
vote
1answer
278 views

What is actually meant by 'sun set' and 'sun rise' times, when taking into account the mirage due to light bending in the atmosphere

I’ve heard from the likes of Brian Cox that what we see of the sun during a sunset and sun rise is actually the mirage of the sun. The Sun has actually set/risen and we see it due to the way light is ...
20
votes
2answers
2k views

Why is the sky not purple?

I realise the question of why this sky is blue is considered reasonably often here, one way or another. You can take that knowledge as given. What I'm wondering is, given that the spectrum of ...
10
votes
1answer
130 views

The transit of Venus and solar neutrino rates

The following question was posed at the end of Maury Goodman's June 2012 long-baseline neutrino newsletter. During the Venus transit of the sun, were more solar neutrinos absorbed in Venus, or ...
1
vote
0answers
54 views

Could Voyager 1 have entered a solar radiation belt?

We currently believe that the Sun has no radiation belts because the unstable magnetic field, which turns every 11 years, is not stable enough to sustain a solar radiation belt. But observations from ...
5
votes
1answer
43 views

Is there an Algorithm to find the time when the sun is X degrees above the horizon for a given latitude B at date C

Is there an accurate algorithm / method to determine the precise time of day/night when the sun is X degrees above (or below) the horizon for a given latitude Y at date Z? Is this the same question ...
3
votes
3answers
467 views

Energy of the electron-muon reaction

Lets see the reaction: $e^- \mu^- \to e^- \pi^- \nu_\mu \;\;\;\;\;\;\;\;\;\;\; {(1)}$ I suppose, that this reaction occurs as follows $e^- \mu^- \to e^- \mu^- \pi^+ \pi^- \to e^- \pi^- \nu_\mu$ Is ...
13
votes
2answers
237 views

Is the length of the day increasing?

In Frontiers of Astronomy, Fred Hoyle advanced an idea from E.E.R.Holmberg that although the Earth's day was originally much shorter than it is now, and has lengthened owing to tidal friction, that ...
5
votes
3answers
495 views

Is a water world possible, and for how long could it be stable?

I have several questions regarding this topic. First, could a water world be stable for thousands of years with most of its surface remaining covered in water. What would it take for this to be ...
3
votes
3answers
2k views

How fast will the sun become a red giant?

I've read many accounts of our sun's distant fate, but what I've never heard is on what time scale these events occur. For instance, when the sun runs out of hydrogen, I presume it doesn't just WHAM! ...
1
vote
1answer
714 views

What is the relationship between mass, speed and distance of a planet orbiting the sun?

After reading this fascinating story about a new exoplanet, I was wondering about how mass, speed and distance determine a circular orbit of a planet around a star. Given the mass of the sun and ...
1
vote
1answer
693 views

Why don't we see solar and lunar eclipses often? [duplicate]

Since we see the new moon at least once in a month when the Moon gets in between of the Sun and the Moon at the night and as far as I know if this happens during the day, you'll get to see a solar ...
1
vote
1answer
495 views

How to determine day/night based on latitude, longitude and a date/time?

Is there a simple method of determining, given a UTC date/time, whether it is day or night at a given lat/long coordinate? I am currently using a formula based on a Sunrise/Sunset Algorithm from the ...
1
vote
3answers
240 views

Sunspots formula

I used the package 'EUREQA', version Formulize, to analyse the monthly smoothed sunspot timeseries from 1750 till 2010. It gives me a simple formula, with 8 coefficients, that match data with a ...