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Yes. For example, on October 8th 1970 Earth was in the Sun's radiofrequency shadow with respect to quasar 3C 279. In other words, quasar 3C 279 was occluded by the sun. Observation from just before and after the occulation permitted measurement of the bending of radiowaves as a test of general relativity. The sun would also block other frequencies of ...

40

The sun does rotate. We can see the rotation of the sun by the doppler shift of the light we get from the sun. . (Image from this page.) Since we know the characteristic spectrum of light from a hot body of a given temperature, we can use the same effect to determine if other stars rotate as well. Note that this only gives the spread in velocities along ...

31

The Sun isn't "made of fire". It's made mostly of hydrogen and helium. Its heat and light come from nuclear fusion, a very different process that doesn't require oxygen. Ordinary fire is a chemical reaction; fusion merges hydrogen nuclei into helium, and produces much more energy. (Other nuclear reactions are possible.) As for rockets, they carry both ...

31

Yes, the sun and nearly all other stars do rotate. One can see the rotation of the sun by looking at the motion of sunspots on its surface. Over time, the sunspots will move across the sun's surface - proof of its rotation. Furthermore, the rate of the sun's rotation is not constant throughout the sun; it is higher near the equator and slower near the ...

31

Briefly: Because the moon's orbit "wobbles" up and down, so it isn't always in the plane of the earth's orbit around the sun. There's a 2D plane you can form from the ellipse of the earth's orbit and the sun. This plane is known as the ecliptic. The moon's orbit is not exactly in the ecliptic at all times; see this (slightly overcomplicated) picture from ...

26

This is from the Physics FAQ article that I wrote 15 years ago: If shorter wavelengths are scattered most strongly, then there is a puzzle as to why the sky does not appear violet, the colour with the shortest visible wavelength. The spectrum of light emission from the sun is not constant at all wavelengths, and additionally is absorbed by the high ...

20

According to Opacity of an Ionized Gas, "light from regions [of the sun] where the pressure is greater than 0.01 atm. is cut off completely, so that all we see comes from a spherical shell of rarefied gas". There is no real surface of the Sun. Instead, the density and pressure of gas/plasma progressively increase from an infinitesimal value far from the ...

19

It just happens to be a coincidence. The current popular theory for how the Moon formed was a glancing impact on the Earth, late in the planet buiding process, by a Mars sized object. This caused the break up of the impactor and debris from both the impactor and the proto-Earth was flung into orbit to later coallesce into the Moon. So the Moon's size just ...

19

This is a really rough calculation that doesn't take into account the realistic direction of the bow shock, or calculation of the drag force. I just take the net momentum flow in the solar wind and direct it so as to produce the maximum decceleration and see what happens. Apparently the solar wind pressure is of the order of a nanoPascal. As I write this ...

18

The reason being closer to a heat source makes you warmer is the inverse square law. Think of it this way: If you have a $1~\mathrm{m}^2$ piece of material facing the Sun and located at Mercury's orbit, it will be quite hot. What does the shadow of this square look like at Earth's orbit (about $2.5$ times further away than Mercury)? Well, it will be $2.5$ ...

17

Yes. A current example of how this is a concern in current science is in NASA's Kepler mission. Kepler is a space telescope designed to look at a specific part of the sky and consistently measure the amount of light coming from the stars in its field of view. When planets orbit in front of their host star they will create a shadow that decreases the ...

16

This is not possible. The lowest possible mass for a main sequence star (sustaining H-1 fusion; it's the regular kind of star) is around 80 Jupiter masses. Just below this, objects are referred to as Brown Dwarfs, which are technically not stars. Whereas the highest possible mass for a terrestrial planet is about 5-10 Earth masses (as per here). Above this ...

15

First, it must be said that the picture you provided in your question is extreme. The concept of light bending is true, but the amount that the light bends is nowhere near as large as the picture shows it. The quantification of how much light bends when transferring from one medium to another is called the "index of refraction," and air's index of ...

14

No, there is not a solar eclipse whenever we see a new moon. The reason we do not have a solar eclipse at every new moon is mostly due to the angle of Earth's axis (and by extension, the Moon's orbital plane) to the Earth-Sun line. See the diagram below (as requested) for a visual explanation. In the picture, the Sun is to the left. The upper image shows the ...

13

@dmckee guessed correctly. From An excerpt from an address delivered before Section A of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, on August 23, 1882, by Prof. Win. Harkness, Chairman of the Section, and Vice President of the Association: (ref) He was destitute of what would now be regarded as the commonest instruments. The invention of ...

13

The Moon's orbit is inclined with respect to the Earth's orbit. In other words, if you imagine a Sun, Earth, and Moon model sitting on a tabletop, the Sun would sit approximately still and the Earth might slide around the desktop, while the Moon would orbit the Earth, hopping up off the table, and sinking back down into it. (I used to do this demonstration ...

13

Great question. The electric field creates such a strong force that it would be very hard to move large amounts of just one type of charge. So astrophysical systems do generally eject equal numbers of protons and electrons. In particular, the solar wind is electrically neutral. So these cosmic rays are created in very nearly equal numbers, but by the ...

12

Placing the solar filter before sunlight hits the instrument is the correct way of doing it. You could put the filter after the instrument, provided you don't mind being blind - the concentrated energy from the Sun heats up the filter, which sooner or later melts (if it's plastic) or cracks or explodes (if it's glass), your eye(s) receive a full dose of that ...

12

Solar wind is neutral overall else the Sun will become globally very strongly charged and we don't see that happening. It comprises Electrons/Protons and other particles.

12

At the radius of the earth, the solar irradiance is approximately $1.412\;\mathrm{kW/m^2}$, giving a total power hitting the foil sheet (assuming normal incidence) of $\sim7.06\;\mathrm{MW}$. The average human in America is around $1.7\;\mathrm{m}$ tall, and somewhere around $0.5\;\mathrm{m}$ wide, making his cross sectional area around $0.85\;\mathrm{m^2}$. ...

11

I believe the easiest way to do this would be empirical, rather than theoretical- Just mark out each hour, all day. It would be especially fascinating if you did this, say, every Saturday, starting with the upcoming Summer Solstice. The artistic possibilities are endless as well... different symbols, colors, outlines, etc., for different times of the year, ...

11

Although the corona's temperature is very high, its density is extremely small, in the order of ~10^-11 kg/m^3. Therefore coronal refraction would be negligeable.

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It is much more. During its core-burning phase, the Sun will burn about 10-15% of its hydrogen supply. The gas is about 70% hydrogen by mass, so that translates into about $0.07$ to $0.1\,M_\odot$ of hydrogen burned. The exhausted core then contracts while hydrogen is burned in a shell that gradually moves outwards (in terms of mass). Helium ignition starts ...

11

Several points that need addressing: The seasons are due to the tilt of the Earth, but not because of the atmosphere. When the sunlight is grazing the ground at a low angle the same amount of heating is spread over a larger area than when the sun is directly overhead, so the temperature drops. The atmosphere has a negligible effect on absorbing radiation ...

11

Short answer, no. The Sun's orbit is non-Keplarian; there are many perturbations and a general unevenness in the motion of the Sun around the Galactic centre. This is a result of non-uniform mass distributions, the galaxy not being a point mass, and the impact the relative motions of neighbour stars has on measuring. Thus, giving a particular eccentricity ...

11

1) Most materials you use in everyday life contain far more moisture than you might believe. This is a major reason materials meant to be exposed to space are specially designed and tested. In a general vacuum, most fabrics and many plastic will outgas - all of the absorbed moisture and oils will work their way to the surface and boil off - which is a major ...

10

The thing is, the Moon's orbital plane is slightly tilted (about 5$^\circ$) with respect to Earth's which means from the Earth's perspective that the Moon's motion oscillates around the Sun's trajectory. On most new moons, then, the Moon is either north or south of the Sun and we don't see an eclipse. For eclipses to happen, new and full moons must occur ...

10

Moonlight is not almost as bright as mid-dawn. Moonlight is really fairly low illumination, and human eyes don't detect color well in low illumination. Moonlight is reflected sunlight. If there's enough of it, it produces color mostly the same way sunlight does. This page, found through a Google search, shows a spectrum of moonlight. All the colors are ...

10

Michael Luciuk's answer is right, but there's an even stronger reason for rejecting this hypothesis: refraction in the corona would be wavelength-dependent, but the gravitational bending due to the Sun has been measured over a wide range of wavelengths (at least from visible to radio) and has been found to be independent of wavelength. Clifford Will's ...

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