SURFACE OF SUN IS COVERED WITH ATOM EXPLOSIONS

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 14, Issue 16, 25 July 1949, Page 4

SURFACE OF SUN IS COVERED WITH ATOM EXPLOSIONS

v Ever since astronomers have been able to observe the sun through large telescopes they have seen .that the sun’s surface is covered with a curious mottled appearance, somewhat like the skin of an orange. It was thought that this was due to a violent effervescence of gases, but the question remained, apart from sunspots, of how these gases operated, and just what was the mechanism that kept them in circulation. Now a scientist has stated that this mottled appearance of the sun’s disc is due to atomic type “mushroom” caps. There must, he said, be a continuous series of atomic explosions in the interior, which send up the familiar huge mushrooms of hot gases, and it is these which give the sun its curious mottled appearance. Thousands of these explosions are occurring every second, and new “mushrooms” take the place of the old. Machine-Gun Bursts

Normally, when the Sun’s disc is photographed a very short exposure is made. When a longer exposure is given, by fitting filters to the camera to cut down the light, no mottling appears. This is because the mushrooms are in motion, and they cancel themselves out in the photograph. In addition, new ones are appearing, and in a long exposure these n'ew mushrooms blend with the old ones to a complete uniformity. This, of course, is entirely an appearance in the photograph, and is not a complete picture of reality. The reality is terrible and aweinspiring indeed. It seems that the sun does not “burn” steadily, like a candle, but instead goes off in bursts like a machine-gun, each burst being an atomic explosion of inconceivable energy. Some of these explosions send geysers jetting 250,000 miles out from the sun.