Page 37 - Curriculum Visions Dynamic Book

 Stretching far out into the corona are looping fountains of hot gases. The source of the loops is within the photosphere. Some of the loops are more than 500,000 km high.
Magnetic fields direct the gases, at first helping the fountains to move out into space, but then forcing most of the gas to return to the Sun’s surface. What gas does escape goes to make the solar wind.
The picture shows that the part of the corona closest to the Sun is made from multitudes of loops. Changes in the strength and intensity of the loops can play a major part in affecting radio transmissions on the Earth.
The hot gases emit ultraviolet light. Ultraviolet light is invisible to the human eye, but detectable by special instruments. In this faLse-coLour image white represents the brightest ultraviolet light.
The Earth is shown on the left-hand side for scale.
false colour The colours used to make the appearance of some property more obvious.
photosphere A shell of the Sun that we regard as its visible surface.
37