Page:Illustrated Astronomy.pdf/31

 Another visible feature of the photosphere is granulation, which owes its name to the “granulate” or “granules” appearance that hot plasma takes when it rises from the convective zone and gets colder when it reaches the photosphere. This plasma has a hot core, but its edges are colder, which creates this granulated shape on the surface. The granules have an average size of 1,500 km and dissipate after 10 or 20 minutes, approximately. Granulation is a constant motion, and it can only be seen observing the Sun through a telescope with special filters.



The Sun’s diameter is 1.4 million km.

The granulation of the Sun can be seen as small imperfections or temperature differences on the surface. To have a general idea of the convective cells’ size, on average, they are slightly smaller than Brazil. In other words, in every “grain”, you can place Argentina, Colombia, Perú, Bolivia, and Chile. • • • 31