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Samantha S

Last post 03-02-2005 2:07 PM by Terry Kucera. 1 replies.
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  • 03-02-2005 8:19 AM

    Samantha S

    Is it true that water was detected in a portion of the sun's spectra?
  • 03-02-2005 2:07 PM In reply to

    • Terry Kucera
    • Top 10 Contributor
    • Joined on 02-27-2005
    • NASA/GSFC, Greenbelt, MD, USA
    • Posts 165

    Re: Samantha S: water on the Sun

    Hi Samantha,
    Yes there is water - but  not liquid water (no oases on the Sun!) it  is steam, so _very_ hot water.  Still, for the Sun that is pretty cool - most parts of the Sun are so hot that any molecule (as you may know, water is made up of an oxygen atom and two hydrogen atoms, so it is a molecule) will come apart. However, in sunspots it is cool enough (about 3800 K or about 6,400 degrees F) for gaseous forms of water and a few other molecules, like carbon monoxide, to exist. We can see lines cause by these molecules in spectra in the infra-red - a color of light humans can't see with their eyes, but is out beyond red in the rainbow.

    Terry
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