Secrets of the Sun
Final Script (V4) as Recorded
Dr. William Gutsch
for
Evans & Sutherland
Audio Start - 00:59:57:28 – Picture Start - 01:00:00:00
Scene 1 (Total Eclipse)
A moment of awesome beauty.
An average star but, for us,
the most important star in all the universe,
hidden by the dark disk of the moon.
Scene 2 (Limb Prominence 2 {old Scene 24})
Until recently,
many things about our star, our sun remained a mystery.
Scene 3 (Explosion from Surface Flight 2 {old Scene 7})
But now, with a host of instruments,
scientists are scanning
the sun’s dynamic surface and atmosphere
like never before.
Scene 4 (Magnetosphere {old Scene 23})
They are unveiling the linkage
between happenings on the sun
and events on Earth.
Scene 5 (Interior - last 10 seconds {old Scene 17})
They are probing the sun’s deep interior
to unlock the mystery of its vast sources of energy
… and how long they will last.
Scene 6 (Planetary nebula - last 10 seconds {old Scene 20})
… And they are piecing together visions of its different
and very exotic future …
Scene 7 (Blue Sun Title {old Scene 3})
… as they reveal …
The Secrets of the Sun.
Scene 8 (Sunset {old Scene 16})
Some ancient peoples believed the sun died each day at sunset.
Scene 9 (Rotating Sun {old Scene 5})
In reality, of course, the sun has been
a continuous source of light and warmth for a long, long time.
At least 25 years!
Scene 10 (Rotating Galaxy {old Scene 22})
25 “Galactic Years”, that is --
25 trips around the center of our spinning Milky Way galaxy –
itself a vast city of perhaps 200 billion stars.
Scene 11 (Earth time lapse {old Scene 21})
The last time the sun was where it is now,
Earth had but one continent …
and dinosaurs roamed the land.
Scene 12 (Solar birth {Old Scene 2 – first 43 seconds})
But using supercomputers and through studying other stars,
we can travel, as if in a time machine, …
back over four and a half billion years
to witness the birth of our sun
and its family of planets.
Here in a great cloud of gas and dust,
gravity begins to work a wonder.
The inner regions of the cloud collapse and heat up ...
until temperatures become so great
that its energy becomes self sustaining.
A star … our sun … has been born.
Scene 13 (Proto-earth and Mars collide {from Universe})
In a flattening disk of debris surrounding the newborn sun,
collisions smash would-be planets to bits …
only to have new ones form under the constant shepherding of gravity.
Scene 14 (Solar birth {old Scene 2 last 43 seconds})
These earliest days are also tumultuous for our sun
as its inner fires try to stabilize.
A final purging of the sun’s natal cocoon
and our star and its family of young planets, comets and asteroids finally settle down to the business of being a solar system.
Scene 15 (KittPeak {old Scene 4})
Today, 4.6 billion years later,
the third planet from the sun has spawned creatures that
have built giant tools to seek out its secrets.
On KittPeak not far from Tucson, Arizona stands such a tool –
the McMath-Pierce Solar Telescope.
Here at its top,
the first in a series of mirrors direct the sun’s light
down a great open shaft
where a large image of the sun can be projected onto a table
in a viewing room far below.
But the McMath-Pierce Solar Telescope
can show us only one, very limited, view of all that the sun really is.
Scene 16 (Sun with Corona {old Scene 5})
Surrounding the familiar disk of the sun
Is a vast gossamer atmosphere, the corona.
Its wispy fingers stretch far out into space.
Our earth and the other planets
literally swim in the outer atmosphere of the sun
Scene 17 (Prominence and corona {all of old Scene 8})
Scene 18 (Surface flight 1)
Bridging the space between the sun’s visible “surface”, or photosphere, and the corona
is a region known as the chromosphere.
Here, great clouds of hot charged gas rain down from above
or materialize in fanciful shapes
as they are contorted
by powerful and changing magnetic fields.
Scene 19 (Earth time lapse {old Scene 21 – last 75 seconds})
As eons race by in seconds,
we see that the “fixed stars” are not fixed at all.
Instead, hurry along their individual courses
with apparently less discipline than cars navigating a highway.
Now and then, stars flash in the far off night
in great explosions that mark their death.
Their atoms and molecules
enrich a cosmic storehouse of material that, in turn,
that gives rise to new suns,
new planets,
and new forms of life.
On Earth, the ploddings of continental drift
slowly scatter and regroup the land
to finally form the familiar shapes we see today.
Amid the teeming biomass,
one species will arise
and, turning its attention skyward,
use its cunning to fathom the secrets of the sun.
Scene 20 (Montage {old Scene 15})
Today, through a complex array
of spacecraft and ground based observatories,
we are scrutinizing the sun like never before,
and gathering gigabytes of daily data
as we keep our parent star under virtually constant surveillance.
A dynamic world is revealed.
Scene 21 (SOHO Blue sun image {old Scene 3})
.
Launched in 1995, the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory satellite, SOHO for short, sends back daily images of the sun in ultraviolet light.
In time lapse, the month long rotation period of the sun
speeds by in seconds.
Scene 22 (TRACE close up {old Scene 9})
Another satellite,
the Transition Region and Coronal Explorer, TRACE,
provides even more intriguing, close up images.
Here, like great wisps of angel hair,
thin strings of broiling hot plasma
at over a half million degrees Celsius
shoot out of magnetic hot spots
and loop through the sun’s lower atmosphere.
Such spectacular happenings arise from …
Scene 23 (Sunspot {old Scene 10})
… so called “active” regions on the sunmarked by sunspots.
This one could easily engulf the earth.
Scene 24 (Solar flight 2 {old Scene 7 -- First 54 seconds})
The solar surface is mottled with patches --
the tops of columns of hot gas welling up from below,
Large clouds of relatively cool, glowing plasma
known as prominences,
hang and morph in the solar sky.
Between, we find a transition zone
where hot gas loops and dances
in displays that, while graceful,
also bear witness to the strong magnetic fields
that force them into such shapes.
Scene 25 ({old Scene 23 Magnetosphere – 10 seconds})
To fully understand the secrets of the sun,
we must think of the sun as a gigantic magnet
whose ejected particles reach out
to the earth’s magnetic field and beyond.
Scene 25 continued ({old Scene 7 Solar flight 2 -- Last 46 seconds})
This linkage between earth and sun can become dramatically apparent
when the sun erupts with what is known as a solar flare.
Imagine a region the size of Asia
exploding with the force of billions of hydrogen bombs
and temperatures of tens of millions of degrees,
being unleashed in mere seconds!!
Such are the makings of a single, major, solar flare.
Scene 26 (Mass ejection {old Scene 11 – First 22 seconds})
Solar flares can reach out and touch the earth.
But frequently, of even greater consequence
is a CME, or Coronal Mass Ejection –
a huge cloud of hot gas blown off the sun --
a billion tons of it.
Scene 27 (Ejection / Magnetosphere {old Scene 12 -- First 20 seconds})
Racing outward, the leading edge of the cloud
can reach the earth and its magnetic field within a few days.
A major geomagnetic storm is about to be unleashed.
The consequences can be significant.
Delicate electronics …
Scene 28 (Mass ejection {old Scene 11 -- last 23 seconds})
… on communications and navigation satellites
can be fused,
cell phones rendered useless,
monitors on oil pipelines destroyed, and
power grids tripped plunging millions into sudden darkness.
Scene 29 (Move into auroral zones {old Scene 14})
But while geomagnetic storms
can have serious and expensive consequences,
they also have a gentle and hauntingly beautiful side.
For, as a storm’s particles are channeled down
toward the earth’s geomagnetic poles …
Scene 30 (Aurorae {old Scene 13})
… they collide with the air high above our heads
and cause it to light up
in dazzling displays of the Northern and Southern Lights.
Scene 31 (Descent into interior of the sun {old Scene 17})
But where does all the sun’s energy come from?
What makes the sun shine?
To probe such deep secrets,
we must descend deep into the sun itself.
We venture below the visible surface --
in reality, not a solid surface at all.
A thermometer would read over 6,000 Celsius and rising.
We descend into the convection zone.
Here bubbles of hot gas, each the size of Texas,
billow to the surface to disgorge their heat …
and then descend to be heated again.
Temperatures are soaring past the 50,000 degree mark.
100,000 miles below the solar surface,
160,000 kilometers below the solar surface
we enter the sun’s radiation zone.
Temperatures have climbed to 2,000,000 degrees …
and continue to rise.
An important boundary rises into view.
This is where the real action is -- the gateway to the sun’s core.
Temperatures have reached an unimaginable
15,000,000 degrees Celsius.
Around us, a seething sea of atomic particles
tear about at speeds of hundreds of miles per second.
We have entered a vast nuclear fusion reactor --
the deeply hidden powerhouse of the sun.
Scene 32 (Nuclear explosion {old Scene 18})
On Earth, man has learned to unleash such energy as well …
but only, thus far, in the terrible spectacle of the hydrogen bomb.
In time, we may develop the technology
to generate a controlled nuclear fusion reaction
and power our needs through a secret learned deep within the sun.
Scene 33 (Rotating sun {old Scene 5 -- 15 seconds})
The sun has been shining for almost 5 billion years.
But how long will it continue to do so?
Scene 34 (Rotating galaxy {old Scene 21 from 15 to 35 second mark})
Stars live very long lives compared to humans.
But in the course of just one journey around the center of the galaxy, some stars are born, grow old, and explosively die.
Scene 35 (Solar story {old Scene 19 -- First 40 seconds})
Our sun has and will continue to live far longer.
But the future … the distant future …
will not be without change.
About 5 billion years from now, the sun will grow cooler.
But as it does, it will also begin to swell in size …
by over 2,000,000 kilometers.
As the surface of the sun slowly draws closer to earth,
our planet’s temperatures will rise …
higher and higher …
until the oceans boil.
Scene 36 (Mercury from New Horizons)
Mercury, the closest planet to the sun,
may well be swallowed up by our star’s swollen atmosphere.
Scene 37 (Venus from New Horizons)
The next planet, Venus, a close neighbor of our own,
may suffer a similar fate.
Scene 38 (Solar story {old Scene 19 -- 35 seconds to 13:25})
Our earth may not be vaporized but its oceans certainly will …
leaving a parched and baked surface
no longer capable of sustaining life.
Long before, the human race may well have left in great fleets of ships
to seek out new earths orbiting newer stars.
Scene 39 (Jupiter from New Horizons)
But, ironically, the changes in our sun that will extinguish life on earth may actually kindle it on other worlds in our solar system.
Jupiter’s ice covered moon, Europa,
may melt to host a myriad of life forms.
Scene 40 (Saturn from Wonders)
Ringed Saturn will also warm … as will its giant moon, Titan.
Should temperatures on frigid Titan rise to those of earth today,
might life appear on this world as well?
Throughout time, throughout our galaxy and others …
Scene 41 (Rotating galaxy -- 10 seconds)
… so many worlds born and consumed …
abodes of life giving way
to new worlds and new life yet to come.
Scene 42 (Solar story {old scene 19 -- last 45 seconds to 14:10})
To enter its senior years, our sun will need to reinvent itself once again.
Time and again, it will shed outer layers of its atmosphere and,
repeatedly stretch and contract.
For stars, even old age is not without its growing pains.
But, such advanced age will not be without its grace.
For late in life, our sun will be ensconced …
Scene 43 (Planetary nebula {old Scene 20})
… in a lovely cocoon of color and light --
what astronomers call a planetary nebula.
Scene 44 (TRACE imagery {old Scene 9 -- 10 seconds from 6:07})
And so, we have seen the story of a rather average star
But, none-the-less, an amazing one.
Scene 45 (Mass ejection {old Scene 11 – from 7:06})
A star far more dynamic
than you may have ever realized.
Scene 46 (Rotating galaxy – old Scene 22 from 17:48})
One star among hundreds of billions
you may never look at
in quite the same way again.
Scene 47 (Soho blue sun with Title on cue)
Now that we live in an age where,
we have begun to learn the fascinating …
Secrets of the Sun.
Scene 48 (Credits over Prominence and Corona Scene)
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