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soups surface where it is cooler. The Suns convection zone is a bubbling 2 millions degrees Fahrenheit. The PHOTOSPHERE, the Suns visible surface, is the next layer of the Sun. The bubbling motion of the convection layer makes the granular patterns we see on the photosphere. The granules may look small in pictures, but scientists estimate they are really about the size of the Moon. Sunspotsindicating giant magnetic stormsare also visible on the photosphere. Most of the time sunspots come in pairslike the poles of a magnet. Even though sunspots are very, very hot they look darker than the rest of the Sun because theyre cooler. This layer of the Sun has cooled off to 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit and the Sunspots are even coolerabout 7,800 degrees F. Just above the photosphere is the CHROMOSPHERE with huge solar flares and loops of hot gases shooting up thousands of miles. Things begin to heat up again herethe temperature is estimated to be 50,000 degrees F. And above the chromosphere is the CORONAwe can only see it during a total solar eclipse. The corona is very, very hot4 million degrees F. It is also very thin. Scientists are still trying to figure out why it is hotter than other parts of the Sun. This is a big mystery Sometimes when the Sun is very active, the hot gases shooting out of the Sun are so powerful that they blow away from the Sun into the solar system. They stream away in all direction from the Sun and can move up to 1 million miles per hour. These streaming, hot gases are called the SOLAR WIND. SOLAR FLARES are sudden, bright outbursts of energy that happen as the Suns magnetic fields twist, tear and reconnect. CORONAL LOOPS are magnetic loops with strong magnetic fields. Giant arches of gas that erupt on the Sun are called PROMINENCES. They can last several days. CORONAL MASS EJECTIONS coming from the Sun have the most energy of all these solar events. Sometimes they head toward the Earth where they can cause communications disruptions and damage satellites. We are very lucky here on Earth because we have a powerful magnetic shield around us which protects us from getting too much energy. Earth is the perfect home planet for us!