The Sun (Is a Miasma of Incandescent Plasma)

Welcome back, hypothetical reader! Had enough of black holes? Yes? Good. No? Too bad, we're talking about the sun now. Why the sun? Because the sun is interesting. We've discussed stars, their fusion processes, and soon we'll be discussing their deaths. But why not discuss stars on a different level, looking at their physical structure, and their layers. That's what we'll be doing today.
First, the basics. The sun has a mass of 1.9891*10^30 kilograms, 333000 times that of the Earth (5.9736*10^24 kg) and a radius of 6.955*10^5 kilometers, 109 times that of the Earth (6731 km). That's pretty huge, but relative to other stars, it is only average. As we discussed in class today, the stars that go supernova can be ten or even one hundred times larger than the sun, while white dwarfs can have the sun's mass but be no larger than the earth.
Of course, today, we're not discussing types of stars, we're talking about that one, very important star in the middle of our solar system. More specifically, I'll now be talking about the parts of the sun. You see, the sun is split up into several layers- the core, the radiation zone, the convection zone, the photosphere, the chromosphere, the transition region, and the corona.
First, the core. The core is the extremely dense region at the center of the star, where nuclear fusion occurs, powering the sun. The core, which is fifteen thousand degrees kelvin on average, is so intensely hot that the hydrogen and helium atoms in it are completely stripped of their electrons. The result is a state of matter referred to as plasma, which is the most energetic state of matter, and is separate from the other three states of matter. Hence, "The Sun is a Miasma of Incandescent Plasma," as opposed to being a "Mass of incandescent gas," as was previously believed.
The layer above the core, who's thickness takes up most of the sun's radius, is the radiation zone. This zone contains much of the star's unfused hydrogen, and it's only real purpose is, as it's name suggests, to radiate the sun's energy. As we've discussed, it takes huge amounts of time for light released by the sun's core to radiate outward, and much of that process takes place in this layer. In this stage, photons are rapidly released, absorbed by hydrogen atoms, and released again. Eventually, these photons work their way to the surface.
Next is the convection zone. We've discussed previously that in medium and larger stars, hot hydrogen "bubbles" can rise from the lower layers to the surface of the sun, acting as an alternate way for the sun to radiate energy.
"Photosphere" is really just a fancy thing to call the surface of the sun. Once light reaches the photosphere, it is able to radiate away, without being interrupted by being absorbed and redirected again. The temperature at this layer is around six thousand kelvin.
Above the surface of the sun is a thin layer called the chromosphere. This area contains scattered gasses, which cause the absorbtion lines visible in sunlight.
The outermost layer of the sun is the corona, literally "halo" in Latin. This layer is by far the hottest layer of the sun, with temperatures ranging in the millions of kelvin. The gasses in this layer are carried by solar wind throughout the solar system, barraging planets in radiation- the result of which on our planet is the auroras.
Here is an image that may clear up the orientation and relative sizes of the layers.

Hopefully this gives some interesting detail and a good look into the interior of the sun. I felt that this would be of interest, as we discussed how stars work, form, and die, but spent relatively little time looking closely at the stars themselves.
Until next time, happy astronomy!


Sources-
http://www.spacestationinfo.com/layers-sun.htm
http://www.universetoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/solarinterior.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_sun