Star Stuff - Terminology

6. A region of space that has so much mass concentrated in it that there is no way for a nearby object to escape its gravitational pull
9. The layer of the solar atmosphere that is located above the photosphere and beneath the transition region and the corona.
10. A temporary disturbed area in the solar photosphere that appears dark because it is cooler than the surrounding areas.
11. The region around a planet such as the Earth within which the motion of charged particles is influenced by the planet's magnetic field
12. A star ending its life in a huge explosion.
13. A stream of charged particles flowing outward from the Sun's corona.
15. The highest energy (shortest wavelength) photons
16. A colorful, rapidly varying glow in the sky caused by the collision of charged particles in the magnetosphere with atoms in the Earth's upper atmosphere.

1. The visible surface of the Sun
2. A layer in a star in which convection currents are the main mechanism by which energy is transported outward. In the Sun, a convection zone extends from just below the photosphere to about seventy percent of the solar radius.
3. Radiation that travels through vacuous space at the speed of light and propagates by the interplay of oscillating electric and magnetic fields.
4. a gas heated to sufficiently high temperatures that the atoms ionize.
5. The outermost layer of the solar atmosphere. The corona consists of a highly rarefied gas with a low density and a temperature greater than one million degrees Kelvin. It is visible to the naked eye during a solar eclipse.
7. A discrete quantity of electromagnetic energy.
8. A neutron star (burnt-out star) that emits radio waves which pulse on and off.
12. Rapid release of energy from a localized region on the Sun in the form of electromagnetic radiation, energetic particles, and mass motions.
14. A faint blue, star-like object commonly considered to be extremely distant, probably an unusual nucleus of a galaxy. It has a tendency to flare.