When I was a child I was told by my science teachers that the sun was
“an average star.” To back up that description, it was pointed out that
there were stars hotter than our sun and colder as well. There were
stars that were bigger and smaller. Even in my college work when we
plotted the luminosity of the stars against their temperature it was
pointed out that our sun is pretty much in the center of the diagram
and has a G2 spectral classification which is pretty much in the middle
of the system used to categorize stars. The Hubble Space Telescope has
taught us much about the distribution of stars in space, and
measurements of stars by instruments using different parts of the
electromagnetic spectrum have added to our recognition that the sun is
an extraordinary star. A recent issue of Astronomy magazine has a cover
article titled “Is the Sun an Oddball Star.” In it many of the unusual
attributes of the sun are listed and some of the problems astronomers
are having finding similar stars are explained. Just a few of those
attributes include the following:
THE SUN IS A SINGLE STAR. Most
stars in the cosmos are binary or trinary stars — two or three stars
orbiting one another. The distances that we are from those stars
prevent us from telling that with our naked eyes, but a vast majority
are not single stars.
THE SUN IS STABLE. Most stars
have violent flares and star quakes that bathe their region of space
with radiation that would be lethal to life. Some stars spin very
rapidly producing great instability in their photospheres. Our sun is
remarkably stable.
THE SUN RADIATES THE PROPER
WAVELENGTHS FOR LIFE. Many biological processes depend upon
particular wavelengths of light to function. Photosynthesis cannot
operate with just any energy of light, and our sun radiates those
wavelengths critical for photosynthesis to occur and does not radiate
the high energy radiation that we see in many other stars.
THE SUN’S TEMPERATURE IS CRITICAL.
For water-based life to occur, there has to be a critical distance that
can be maintained from the star providing the energy. Our sun has a
temperature that allows a large solar habitable zone where the earth
can have an elliptical orbit and still support life. Being too close to
a star produces massive instability in a planet, and most stars are too
small for a solar habitable zone to be at great distances from them.
For a more complete listing and explanation of the unique features of
our sun read the June 2010 issue of Astronomy
magazine. The sun is an incredibly designed furnace, made of its own
fuel, which still has 98 percent of the hydrogen fuel it had the day it
was created.
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Does God Exist?, NovDec10.