Pub Trivia - AKA things that may be beyond the scope of Moorey’s knowledge

Lazmo

Lazmo

Old and hopeless
Sorry for my tardiness in response to the sun light question, but I just squeezed in a lap of Lysty. It was nice out, heaps of newbies, I felt like a pro… geez, something’s wrong.

Anyway, no, no, no and no.

I didn’t ask how long it takes light to get to the earth from the sun’s surface (not that the sun really has a surface) … but the key word in the question here is "generated".

And weirdly there are a few answers, depending on which astrophysicist or theorist you believe.
 
Dales Cannon

Dales Cannon

lightbrain about 4pm
Staff member
It is millions of years yes?

One of things that always gets me looking at distant stars is that they may not be there anymore because you are looking at light that is millions of years old. Mazing stuff.
 
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Lazmo

Lazmo

Old and hopeless
Dales Cannon said:
It is millions of years yes?
Click to expand...
Some think so. Some think tens of thousands of years. It seems 100 thousand years is popular. Depends on ya maths.

The whole thing actually begins at the core of the sun where hydrogen is being fused into helium. This core of plasma is about 25% of the Suns diameter and the fusion happening there is pretty damn hot, and it generates gamma radiation, which as it makes its way outward from the core, is immediately absorbed and then re-emitted, immediately absorbed and then re-emitted, immediately absorbed and then re-emitted, on and on and on. But the absorbed and re-emitted can be in any direction. Sometimes outward, sometimes sideways, sometimes back where you came from. To get an idea of how complex that can be, google “physicists drunkard's walk“ as that will help. Anway the bottom line is that it takes a fair while for the gamma rays to make their way outward and as they do their wavelengths morph slowly into all the other forms of radiation like x-rays, infrared and visible light. To complicate it even more, the sun has a few different layers, which have varying densities, in the main reducing as they rise outward, so establishing a definite time for when a spot of gamma becomes a spot of light , is only conjecture as it is all a bit random. Regardless, it takes the energy that creates light a very long time to emerge from the sun.

And it isn’t 8 minutes.
 
pink poodle

pink poodle

気が狂っている男
Shit man this is trivia not science! If I wanted to learn this shit I would've paid attention at school instead of being a naughty boy...you got a new question? One with an answer? Please?
 
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