The Sun - Quiz

The ___ is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is a nearly perfect ball of hot plasma.

The Sun radiates ______ mainly as light, ultraviolet, and infrared radiation, and is the most important source of energy for life on ______.

• energy, earth

• earth, energy

• uv rays, mars

• hydrogen, earth

The Sun's radius is about 695,000 kilometers (432,000 miles), or 110 times that of Earth.

• True, all the statements are correct.

• False, it's radius is 700,000 kilometers, or 111 times that of Earth.

• False, it's radius is 690,000 kilometers, or 107 times that of Earth.

• It's not completely correct, the sun's radius is 109 times that of Earth.

• False, the statements are all incorrect.

Roughly three-quarters of the Sun's mass consists of hydrogen (~73%); the rest is mostly helium (~25%), with much smaller quantities of heavier elements, including _____, _____, _____, and _____.

• Oxygen

• Carbon

• Organessen

• Neon

• Iron

The Sun is a G-type main-sequence star (G2V).

• True

• False

Every second, the Sun's core fuses about __________ of hydrogen into helium, and in the process converts 4 million tons of matter into energy.

• 400 billion tons

• 600 billion tons

The Sun is composed primarily of the chemical elements hydrogen and helium. At this time in the Sun's life, they account for 74.8% and 23.8%, respectively, of the mass of the Sun in the photosphere.

• True

• False

Answer explanation

The Sun is composed primarily of the chemical elements hydrogen and helium. At this time in the Sun's life, they account for 74.9% and 23.8%, respectively, of the mass of the Sun in the photosphere.

The core of the Sun extends from the center to about 20–25% of the solar radius.

• True

• False

The Sun emits light across the visible spectrum, so its color is green with a CIE color-space index near (0.3, 0.3), when viewed from space or when the Sun is high in the sky.

• True

• False

Answer explanation

The Sun emits light across the visible spectrum, so its color is white, with a CIE color-space index near (0.3, 0.3), when viewed from space or when the Sun is high in the sky.

The Sun has _____ known planets _____ around it. This includes four terrestrial planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars), two gas giants (Jupiter and Saturn), and two _____ (Uranus and Neptune).