AGE OF THE UNIVERSE

The Universe is defined as everything that physically exists: the entirety

of space and time, all forms of matter, energy and momentum, and the physical
laws and constants that govern them. Current interpretations of astronomical
observations indicate that the age of the Universe is 13.73 (± 0.12) billion years,
and that the diameter of the observable Universe is at least 93 billion light years,
or 8.80 × 10 meters. According to general relativity, space can expand with no
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intrinsic limit on its rate; thus, two galaxies can separate more quickly than the
speed of light if the space between them grows. It is uncertain whether the size
of the Universe is finite or infinite.

According to the prevailing scientific model of the Universe, known as the

Big Bang, the Universe expanded from an extremely hot, dense phase called the
Planck epoch, in which all the matter and energy of the observable Universe was
concentrated. Since the Planck epoch, the Universe has been expanding to its
present form. Several independent experimental measurements support this
theoretical expansion and, more generally, the Big Bang theory. Recent
observations indicate that this expansion is accelerating because of the dark
energy, and that most of the matter and energy in the Universe is
fundamentally different from that observed on Earth and not directly observable.
The imprecision of current observations has hindered predictions of the ultimate
fate of the Universe.

In physical cosmology and astronomy, dark energy is a hypothetical

form of energy that permeates all of space and tends to increase the rate of
expansion of the universe. Dark energy is the most popular way to explain recent
observations that the universe appears to be expanding at an accelerating rate.
In the standard model of cosmology, dark energy currently accounts for 74% of
the total mass-energy of the universe.
 This high-resolution image of the Hubble ultra deep field, from the Hubble space telescope
includes galaxies of various ages, sizes, shapes, and colors. The smallest, reddest galaxies, about
100, are some of the most distant galaxies to have been imaged by an optical telescope, existing
at the time shortly after the Big Bang.

NATURE OF THE SUN

The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. The Earth and other
matter (including other planets, asteroids, meteoroids, comets, and dust) orbit
the Sun, which by itself accounts for about 99.86% of the Solar System's mass.
The mean distance of the Sun from the Earth is approximately
149,598,000 kilometers (92,956,000 mi), and its light travels this distance in 8
minutes and 19 seconds. This distance varies throughout the year from a
minimum of 147,100,000 kilometers (91,400,000 mi) on 3 January, to a
maximum of 152,100,000 kilometers (94,500,000 mi) on 4 July. Energy from the
Sun, in the form of sunlight, supports almost all life on Earth via photosynthesis,
and drives the Earth's climate and weather.

The surface of the Sun consists of hydrogen (about 74% of its mass, or
92% of its volume), helium (about 24% of mass, 7% of volume), and trace
quantities of other elements, including iron, nickel, oxygen, silicon, sulfur,
magnesium, carbon, neon, calcium, and chromium. The Sun has a spectral class
of G2V. G2 means that it has a surface temperature of approximately 5,780 K
(5,510°C) giving it a white color, which often appears as yellow when seen from
the surface of the Earth because of atmospheric scattering. This is a subtractive
effect, as the preferential scattering of shorter wavelength light removes enough
violet and blue light, leaving a range of frequencies that is perceived by the
human eye as yellow. It is this scattering of light at the blue end of the spectrum
that gives the surrounding sky its color. When the Sun is low in the sky, even
more light is scattered so that the Sun appears orange or even red.

The Sun's spectrum contains lines of ionized and neutral metals as well as
very weak hydrogen lines. The V (Roman five) in the spectral class indicates that
the Sun, like most stars, is a main sequence star. This means that it generates its
energy by nuclear fusion of hydrogen nuclei into helium. There are more than
100 million G2 class stars in our galaxy. Once regarded as a small and relatively
insignificant star, the Sun is now known to be brighter than 85% of the stars in
the galaxy, most of which are red dwarfs.

The Sun orbits the center of the Milky Way galaxy at a distance of
approximately 24,000–26,000 light years from the galactic center, moving
generally in the direction of Cygnus and completing one revolution in about 225–
250 million years (one Galactic year). Its orbital speed was thought to be
220±20 km/s, but a new estimate gives 251 km/s.

The sun was formed about 4.57 billion years ago when the rapid collapse
of a hydrogen molecular cloud led to the formation of a third generation T Tauri
Population I star, the Sun. The nascent star assumed a nearly circular orbit about
26,000 light-years from the center of the Milky Way Galaxy.
 The Sun is about halfway through its main-sequence evolution, during
which nuclear fusion reactions in its core fuse hydrogen into helium. Each
second, more than 4 million tons of matter are converted into energy within the
Sun's core, producing neutrinos and solar radiation; at this rate, the Sun will
have so far converted around 100 Earth-masses of matter into energy. The Sun
will spend a total of approximately 10 billion years as a main sequence star.

STRUCTURE OF THE SUN

The Sun is a yellow main sequence star comprising about 99% of the total
mass of the Solar System. It is a near-perfect sphere, with an oblateness
estimated at about 9 millionths, which means that its polar diameter differs from
its equatorial diameter by only 10 km (6 mi). As the Sun exists in a plasmatic
state and is not solid, it rotates faster at its equator than at its poles. This
behavior is known as differential rotation. The period of this actual rotation is
approximately 25 days at the equator and 35 days at the poles. However, due to
our constantly changing vantage point from the Earth as it orbits the Sun, the
apparent rotation of the star at its equator is about 28 days.

The Sun does not have a definite boundary as rocky planets do, and in its
outer parts the density of its gases drops approximately exponentially with
increasing distance from its center. Nevertheless, it has a well-defined interior
structure, described below. The Sun's radius is measured from its center to the
edge of the photosphere. This is simply the layer above which the gases are too
cool or too thin to radiate a significant amount of light, and is therefore the
surface most readily visible to the naked eye.
 The solar interior is not directly observable, and the Sun itself is opaque to
electromagnetic radiation. However, just as seismology uses waves generated by
earthquakes to reveal the interior structure of the Earth, the discipline of
helioseismology makes use of pressure waves (infrasound) traversing the Sun's
interior to measure and visualize the star's inner structure. Computer modeling of
the Sun is also used as a theoretical tool to investigate its deeper layers.

CHEMICAL COMPOSITION

The Sun is composed primarily of the chemical elements hydrogen and

helium; they account for 74.9% and 23.8% of the mass of the Sun in the
photosphere, respectively. All heavier elements, called metals in astronomy,
account for less than 2 percent of the mass. The most abundant metals are
oxygen (roughly 1% of the Sun's mass), carbon (0.3%), neon (0.2%), and iron
(0.2%).

The Sun inherited its chemical composition from the interstellar medium
out of which it formed: the hydrogen and helium in the Sun were produced by
Big Bang nucleosynthesis. The metals were produced by stellar nucleosynthesis
in generations of stars which completed their stellar evolution and returned their
material to the interstellar medium prior to the formation of the Sun. The
chemical composition of the photosphere is normally considered representative of
the composition of the primordial Solar System. However, since the Sun formed,
the helium and heavy elements have settled out of the photosphere. Therefore,
the photosphere now contains slightly less helium and only 84% of the heavy
elements than the protostellar Sun did; the protostellar Sun was 71.1%
hydrogen, 27.4% helium, and 1.5% metals.

In the inner portions of the Sun, nuclear fusion has modified the
composition by converting hydrogen into helium, so the innermost portion of the
Sun is now roughly 60% helium, with the metal abundance unchanged. Because
the interior of the Sun is radiative, not convective (see Structure above), none of
the fusion products from the core have risen to the photosphere.

The solar heavy-element abundances described above are typically

measured both using spectroscopy of the Sun's photosphere and by measuring
abundances in meteorites that have never been heated to melting temperatures.
These meteorites are thought to retain the composition of the protostellar Sun
and thus not affected by settling of heavy elements. The two methods generally
agree well.