From the AGU weekly highlights:
Large solar proton event explains 774-775 CE carbon-14 increase
Tree ring records indicate that in 774-775 CE, atmospheric carbon-14 levels increased substantially. Researchers suggest that a solar proton event may have been the cause. In solar proton events, large numbers of high-energy protons are emitted from the Sun, along with other particles. If these particles reach Earth’s atmosphere, they ionize the atmosphere and induce nuclear reactions that produce higher levels of carbon-14; the particles also cause chemical reactions that result in depletion of ozone in the ozone layer, allowing harmful ultraviolet radiation to reach the ground.
A previous group of researchers suggested that to cause the observed eighth century carbon-14 increase, a solar proton event would have had to be thousands of times larger than any that has been observed from the Sun. However, Thomas et al. believe that group’s calculations were incorrect. They modeled the atmospheric and biologic effects of three solar proton events with different energy spectra and fluences (number of protons per area). They find that an event with about 7 or more times greater fluence (depending on the spectrum) than an observed October 1989 solar flare event could explain the 774-775 CE carbon-14 enhancement. With a hard (high-energy) spectrum, an event with this fluence would result in moderately damaging effects on life but would not cause a mass extinction. They rule out an event with a softer spectrum because such an event would cause severe ozone depletion and mass extinction, which were not observed in the eighth century. The authors estimate that solar proton events of this magnitude occur on average once in a thousand years, and more often if the estimate is based on astronomical observations of flares on Sun-like stars. They note that although that may seem low, such an event would have severely damaging effects on the technology on which society relies.
Source:
Geophysical Research Letters, doi:10.1002/grl.50222, 2013 http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/grl.50222/abstract
Title:
Terrestrial effects of possible astrophysical sources of an AD 774-775 increase in carbon-14 production
Abstract:
We examine possible sources of a substantial increase in tree ring14C measurements for the years AD 774-775. Contrary to claims regarding a coronal mass ejection (CME), the required CME energy is not several orders of magnitude greater than known solar events. We consider solar proton events (SPEs) with three different fluences and two different spectra. The data may be explained byan event with fluenceabout one order of magnitude beyond the October 1989 SPE.Two hard spectrum cases considered here result in moderate ozone depletion, so no mass extinction is implied, though we do predict increases in erythema and damage to plants from enhanced solar UV.We are able to rule out an event with a very soft spectrum that causes severe ozone depletion and subsequent biological impacts.Nitrate enhancements are consistent with their apparent absence in ice core data. The modern technological implications of such an eventmay beextreme, and considering recent confirmation of superflares on solar-type stars, this issue merits attention.
Authors:
Brian C. Thomas, Keith R. Arkenberg and Brock R. Snyder II: Department of Physics and Astronomy, Washburn University, Topeka, Kansas, United States;
Adrian L. Melott: Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas, United States.
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@ur momisuglygeorge E Smith
“An interesting EM antenna comparison, is the typical marine antennas used on small private vessels for Marine VHF communications (line of sight) and the old, now seldom seen Loran-C navigation system….”
> Great analogy and great Teaching tool for the concepts, George, thank you! I’m not likely to forget that story 🙂
A question to both you and Vukcevic, though perhaps a little more in his ‘bailiwick’, about Wiki: –
@ur momisugly Vukcevic –
> I’m still lost regards what’s being illustrated by your graph (the geomagnetic storm measured at Tromso), but I found this at Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geomagnetically_induced_current and wonder if I can use it as a starting point for my explorations. I know Wiki has become a bit of a ‘byword’, w/questions of neutrality of data abounding, and will say myself that some of their political and historical pages (more my area) make me want to tear my teeth out (dentures, not too painful ;-)), but I definitely don’t want to ‘learn something’ and then have to ‘unlearn it’, later – that’s always twice as long a process, for anyone. If you or anyone has something ONLINE which comprehensively walks through these complexities of interactions, the known and unknown, without too much resort to math and formulas (I know I’ll have to face that, eventually), please do link me to such. So far, I’ve found reading Donald E. Scott’s (PhD Electrical Engineering) overview http://electric-cosmos.org/indexOLD.htm to be saluatory, but realize I’m looking through a very controversial lens in doing so (howevermuch it ‘feels’ right to me). Hope you catch this as this post is getting stale…
Great volcanic lightning photo, btw. Might end up awhile on my desktop.
@ur momisugly 1phobosgrunt
“A cool discovery about the Sun’s next-door twin
20 Feb 2013
One of the great curiosities in solar science is that our Sun’s outer atmosphere – the corona – is heated to millions of degrees when its visible surface is ‘only’ about 6000 degrees. Even stranger is a curious temperature minimum of 4000 degrees lying between the two layers, in the chromosphere. Now, using ESA’s Herschel space observatory, scientists have made the first discovery of an equivalent cool layer in the atmosphere of the Sun-like star, Alpha Centauri A.
http://sci.esa.int/science-e/www/object/index.cfm?fobjectid=51395
And..
NASA’s IRIS Spacecraft Is Fully Integrated
1.18.13
..Scheduled to launch in April 2013, the Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS) will make use of high-resolution images, data and advanced computer models to unravel how matter, light, and energy move from the sun’s 6,000 K (10,240 F / 5,727 C) surface to its million K (1.8 million F / 999,700 C) outer atmosphere, the corona.”
>If I’m not mistaken, I believe the Thunderbolts gang have some coherent (developing) and most important falsifiable postulates (theories?) about how all this is working. Hopefully the data will be open source and the ‘computer models’ not embedded so as to compromise examinations and interpretations. Exciting Times!
@ur momisuglyVolker Doorman
> Also Fascinating – but well above my paygrade. Astronomy Domine?
“Large solar proton event explains 774-775 CE carbon-14 increase
Tree ring records indicate that in 774-775 CE, atmospheric carbon-14 levels increased substantially. Researchers suggest that a solar proton event may have been the cause. In solar proton events, large numbers of high-energy protons are emitted from the Sun, along with other particles. If these particles reach Earth’s atmosphere, they ionize the atmosphere and induce nuclear reactions that produce higher levels of carbon-14 … ”
Yes and the (scientific) question is what the cause is of these events. The gap is also to be found in the excellent reconstructed high frequency temperature function of A. Moberg et al. :
http://www.volker-doormann.org/images/moberg_vs_ghi6.gif
In my above posting I have shown that there is a connection of solar tide functions and the sea level oscillation and a connection of solar tide functions and the global climate function over some millennia.
But comparing the A. Moberg et al. data with the solar tide functions of the couples Jupiter and beyond, it becomes clear that also the gap in the temperature function in the years of 774 AD, 775 AD, can be linked to solar tide functions.
V.
Ref.:
– Ching-Cheh Hung, ‘Apparent Relations Between Solar Activity and Solar Tides Caused by the Planets’, NASA/TM—2007-214817
– Anders Moberg et al., Nature, Vol. 433, No. 7026, pp. 613 – 617, 10 February 2005
Leif,
So, on a 360 degree rotational basis, what is the probability of a solar flare with extinctive capability (or even chaotic infrastructure damage ability) being aimed such as to impact the Earth, ie how wide is the “window” through which it must be aimed to hit us really hard? This probability then multiplied by the probability of the occurance of such an event of that strength (which I doubt we actually know very accurately but we could perhaps estimate from other sun like stars mentioned above) would give us the probability of us feeling a severe impact of same.
Jim G says:
March 14, 2013 at 12:42 pm
how wide is the “window” through which it must be aimed to hit us really hard?
About 30 degrees
This probability then multiplied by the probability of the occurance of such an event of that strength
WEhat we observe is the result, so the calculation goes the other way. From the resulting frequency and the window we can calculate the occurrence frequency, if we had the data, which we do not. But is should be clear that the occurrence is low.
Tiburon says:
March 14, 2013 at 9:59 am
@Volker Doorman
> Also Fascinating – but well above my paygrade. Astronomy Domine?
It’s difficult. Astronomy is the law of the moving stars described by J. Kepler. The name of astro comes from the name of Astarte (A_star_te) which is the name of the planet Venus. An important point is that the movement of the moving stars is without any loss and or without any load of energy mostly over millions of years. Some planet are locked as Jupiter and Saturn in a stable 5:2 resonance or locked as Neptune and Pluto in a stable 3:2 resonance. But without any visible causality, which follows what, it is not a case of domine. On the other side it is obvious, that in tide processes there are forces acting which do move fluids on the surface of bodies. This behaviour makes it difficult to describe a causal physical mechanism. But the strong correlation of the solar tide functions with the global sea level oscillations suggest that there must be an (unknown ?) mechanism which in not only connected to the sea level, but also to the terrestrial global temperature, because of the know connection of the volume of water and its temperature. It is also sure, that the mechanism is located on the sun or the sun’s surface, because the tide function of Mercury and Sun to the Earth would very different to the tide function to the Sun.
However, it’s science and no fiction. Thanks.
V.
Tiburon says:
March 14, 2013 at 9:59 am
……..
For Geomagnetic components see
http://wdc.kugi.kyoto-u.ac.jp/element/eleexp.html
also
http://flux.phys.uit.no/cgi-bin/plotgeodata.cgi?Last24&site=tro2a&
Graph shows deviation from mean
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/SO.htm
1phobosgrunt says:
March 14, 2013 at 5:07 am
=====================================
Perhaps the million degree layer is the part of the Sun where the fusion of hydrogen is taking place.
The Sun is not solved.
Gotcha, vukcevic – (finally) – ‘deviation from mean’. Thanks for links, got my homework. Found the youtube Yale lectures on maxwell’s equations & electromagnetic waves, and related. (will be tough slogging, but I can seek a mentor). Also a very basic overview from NASA on the EM spectrum.
Big full halo CME on the way, filimentary eruption from SS 1692 at about 8 AM UT (M 1.2 – SDO eclipsed by earth mid-event, figures), but said to be arguably equivalent of X-class flare (due “magnetic reconnection” – of which I’m not so sure…). Enlil spiral’s been updated, http://www.solarham.net/cmewatch2.htm we’re square in the crosshairs, so I’m watching the local weather since I’m at 42.423 N latitude and if clear I’ll try and get out of the light pollution to watch the (likely) show tomorrow night (will hit around 22:00 UT, peak at midnight – about 8 PM here, I guess)
Speaking of Mercury, Volker Doormann here’s a nice ‘Tribute to Messenger’ with great photos showing clearly the fulgamites in many craters and dendritic ridges http://www.universetoday.com/100733/a-tribute-to-messenger/
Thanks all for help
@Kajajuk
“….The Sun is not solved.”
no indeed.
http://www.ptep-online.com/index_files/2013/PP-32-05.PDF
“””””……Perhaps the million degree layer is the part of the Sun where the fusion of hydrogen is taking place……”””””
Fusion of hydrogen requires a lot more than simply Temperature. Temperature simply means that atoms or molecules are running around, and into each other at very high collision velocities.
You also have to have that happen a whole lot of times for the reactions to take place (often enough). So that requires high pressures at the same time as high Temperatures. Last time I heard, the coronal regions of the sun, were closer to a vaccuum than to anything very dense.
Fusion takes place in the cores of stars where both high Temperature and high pressure occur together.
And you have to maintain those conditions for some time, which is why it can’t be done on earth, because such plasmas are unstable.
Mother Gaia knows how big and hot and dense you have to build a thermo-nuclear reactor; and she also knows how far you have to put it away from humans for safety reasons; about 93 million miles is safe enough.
Kajajuk says:
March 15, 2013 at 5:12 am
Perhaps the million degree layer is the part of the Sun where the fusion of hydrogen is taking place. The Sun is not solved.
No, there are many reasons that the fusion takes place in the core. E.g. otherwise the Sun would collapse because of lack of internal pressure, and the corona is also not hot enough [even at a couple of million degrees], and the corona is to thin, etc. That part of solar physics has been solved almost a century ago.
Tiburon says:
March 15, 2013 at 7:08 am
no indeed. http://www.ptep-online.com/index_files/2013/PP-32-05.PDF
That is a piece of pseudo-scientific nonsense. For example, the density of the solar photosphere is a thousand times smaller than the air you breathe. The density and internal structure of the Sun has been accurately measured using helioseismology and found to fit closely the standard gaseous models.
Hi Dr Svalgaard.
“That is a piece of pseudo-scientific nonsense”
OK, I can take that at face value, but bearing in mind my Lilluputian status in regards to understanding these phenomena, can you explain to me the “Wilson Effect” in sunspots, in a manner a lay person might comprehend? (I mean the visible depressions of the photosphere easily seen on the Limb when sunspots rotate in and out of sight) Given it’s happening in a gas
“a thousand times (less dense) than the air (we) breathe”?
The EU folks see (as in, “observe in the visible spectrum”) structures akin to Birkland currents (vortexes or ‘tornadoes’ ‘transmitting’ (sorry) electrical current) in the spicules surrounding these spots, but I don’t by any means understand how this might be related, if at all, and I’m aware that you have severe opprobrium for their work and will not (respectfully: – apparently) engage in any form of debate regards their central postulates and extrapolations of the work of Irving Langmuir, Hans Alfven and Anthony Peratt.
Also, I’m a little taken aback at the vociferousness implicit in your use of the term “pseudo-scientific”, as evidently the theory of condensed matter (liquid sun?) was entertained by great astrophysical scientists in the past who are responsible for many of the ‘basic principles’ of solar science – I know you’re not implying THEY were charlatans, howevermuch their ideas may have been supplanted by the contemporary mainstream model of solar physics…
Also, to what level of ‘statistical certainty’ (if that’s the appropriate term), has the density and internal structure of the sun been found to “closely fit”, “using helioseismology to (explain) the standard gaseous models”. Could you recommend to me some abstracts (that’s really all I’d have a hope of understanding, complex math – forget it) dealing with actually observed events and phenomena on the solar surface, that could help me visualize what’s occuring?
Also, regards the upcoming lauch on April 2013 of the Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS) satellite, why are they wasting what I assume to be hundreds of millions of dollars given that the physics are largely well-understood? Don’t we have better things to spend our money on here on Earth?
This may be relevant: – {I’ll note, autobiographically, that I have a constant internal battle with a proclivity to solipsistic synchronicity, but I’m giving into that, a little, herein}
March 15, 2013
Is Cassiopeia A (Cas A) dying or just changing her fashion?
Bio 1:
In the beginning was an artist’s illustration of the consensus theory of stellar evolution. Thermonuclear fusion reactions at the center of the star transformed hydrogen into helium. After a time, the growing core of helium contracted enough under its own gravity to heat up to the stage where the helium transformed into oxygen and carbon. Successive contractions and transformations built up shells of neon, magnesium, silicon, and sulfur.
Finally, a core of iron began to grow. Iron is the dead-end of transformation succession: fusion reactions beyond iron absorb more energy than they release. The core can never balance it’s contracting with a new source of energy.
Three hundred years ago, the iron core of Cas A collapsed. The layers above imploded and blew themselves into space as a supernova.
R.I.P.
But now the autopsy reveals something surprising: the guts of the star—the iron and silicon and sulfur that should have been on the inside, that should have collapsed into a neutron star—are on the outside. The coroner reports, “Surprisingly, there is no evidence…for iron near the center…. Also, much of the silicon and sulfur, as well as the magnesium, is now found toward the outer edges…. [Something] somehow turned the star inside out.” He found in the outer layers “clumps of almost pure iron, [which] must have been produced by nuclear reactions near the center….”
Let’s examine this casual admission of surprise more closely. If the coroner was surprised, it must be because he was expecting something else. He was expecting something else because his theory predicted something else. Now a standard test procedure in science is to deduce some particular phenomenon from the theory to be tested and then to look for whether or not the phenomenon occurs. If it does, one proclaims that the theory has been validated (although this is a logically suspect exaggeration). If the phenomenon doesn’t occur…. Well, the matter is often simply hushed up. But logically the theory has been falsified, which means it’s not true, which means that only a fool would continue believing in it. Now, I don’t wish to cast aspersions on astronomers’ motley; I’ll just mention that they’re wearing it.
Furthermore, the coroner remarked that “[o]xygen, which according to theoretical models is the most abundant element in the remnant, is difficult to detect…because almost all the oxygen ions have had all their electrons stripped away.” It takes an astronomical amount of heat to smack oxygen atoms together hard enough to knock off all their electrons. The alleged explosion was long ago and far away. One might expect the debris to cool off a bit.
On the other hand (to foreshadow Bio 2), it takes only a modest amount of electricity to publicly embarrass an oxygen nucleus like that. A double layer capable of accelerating protons to cosmic-ray energies will strip electrons off oxygen atoms as easily as a bartender pops caps off beer bottles at happy hour.
Bio 2:
In the beginning was an analogy between the observed properties of plasma discharges in a lab and the observed characteristics of stars. A Bennett pinch in a galactic-scale Birkeland current squeezed the ambient plasma into a glowing balloon. High-energy discharges to the glowing skin generated light and x-rays, fused hydrogen into heavier elements, and sorted the elements into clumps and layers of like materials.
Three hundred years ago, an instability in the discharge current triggered a star-encompassing double layer to expand catastrophically. It carried not only the elements but also the processes that fused and sorted them into space.
Now, what’s on the outside of the nebula is merely a more distant version of what was originally on the outside of the star. The guts are still on the inside; we needn’t be nauseated or surprised; we still don’t know anything about them.
But we do know that the star is as much electrically alive as it always was; it just switched to a different mode of operation. Mourning is unnecessary.
The coroner would better spend his time on an autopsy of his theory than of his star.
Mel Acheson
Nice X-ray of Cassiopeia A from NASA/CXC/GSFC/U.Hwang & J.Laming, today, viewable here: – http://www.thunderbolts.info/wp/2013/03/14/the-biographies-of-cas-a-3/
Oh…the Coroner: – http://chandra.si.edu/photo/2012/casa/
Tiburon says:
March 15, 2013 at 9:15 am
can you explain to me the “Wilson Effect” in sunspots,
First of all, only about half of sunspots show the Wilson effect, the other half are too irregular to show any clear effect.
Second, the gas in which the sunspots are found is more transparent in the spot [the temperature is lower] and we thus can see deeper into the Sun [about a thousand km] giving the impression of a ‘depression’.
in the spicules surrounding these spots
The Sun is full of electric currents created by the neutral solar plasma moving in magnetic fields, as the great plasma physicists of the past have shown. And science does move forward. E.g. we don’t believe anymore that the sunspots are holes in a solar cloud layer allowing us to see the cool interior and follow the activity of the inhabitants of that world.
Also, I’m a little taken aback at the vociferousness implicit in your use of the term “pseudo-scientific”
The arguments in the article are so wrong that it is hard to know where to begin. Perhaps the simplest one is the density of the photosphere. But, you see, nonsense is sometimes hard to refute. Here is an example: “Beyond metallic hydrogen itself, dense hydrogen could play an important role in the Sun, since the photosphere appears to be less metallic in nature than sunspots. The author has advanced arguments that the photosphere adopts a layered lattice resembling graphite while the lattice in sunspots has more metallic character. This is presumably due to slightly decreased inter-atomic distances within the layered lattice of sunspots..”. This is first-class nonsense. There is a concept of something ‘wronger than wrong’ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wronger_than_wrong
Also, to what level of ‘statistical certainty’ (if that’s the appropriate term), has the density and internal structure of the sun been found to “closely fit”, “using helioseismology to (explain) the standard gaseous models”.
To better than 1%. Here is a good link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helioseismology and this one http://sun.bao.ac.cn/hsos_datas/Meeting_report/2012_MINIMEETING_on_Helioseismology/Leibacher/Leibacher_Helioseismology_Beijing_Handouts.pdf
Also, regards the upcoming lauch on April 2013 of the Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS) satellite, why are they wasting what I assume to be hundreds of millions of dollars given that the physics are largely well-understood? Don’t we have better things to spend our money on here on Earth?
We always learn more by further study, that would help us, perhaps, to better predict what goes on. That is money well spent. Here on Earth we tend to squander money.
Volker Doormann says:
March 14, 2013 at 5:58 am
. . . This all is shown in this graph:
http://www.volker-doormann.org/images/sea_level_vs_solar_tide_1.gif
What ever is the real ’cause’ of the increasing linear trend of the seal level data adjustments of the University of Colorado; the questions remain, why is the sea level oscillation frequency in phase with the solar tide function of the couple of the most dense objects in the solar system ?
There is another possible connection between the solar neutrino rate and the Ocean Niño Index ONI on Earth:
http://www.volker-doormann.org/images/solar_neutrino_vs_oni.gif
Check yourself.
V.
Tiburon says:
March 15, 2013 at 10:04 am
Is Cassiopeia A (Cas A) dying or just changing her fashion?
It is long dead. The findings just show that explosions are very messy. A nice layered structure just blows to kingdom come and one should, perhaps, not assume that it stays nice and layered.
Tiburon says:
March 15, 2013 at 9:15 am
Also, to what level of ‘statistical certainty’ (if that’s the appropriate term), has the density and internal structure of the sun been found to “closely fit”, “using helioseismology to (explain) the standard gaseous models”.
Instead of long [mathematical] explanations, the following plot may give you an idea of what I meant by ‘close’: http://www.leif.org/research/Precision-Helioseismology.png
The red data points show the frequency of solar vibrations [‘quake waves’] as function of size. The blue symbols show the error bar multiplied by a thousand.
OK, thank you Dr. Svalgaard. I’m going to ruminate on what you’ve kindly shared with me awhile, and check out your links, best I can. I’ve heard about the ‘optical’ explanation for the apparent Wilson effect. Makes some sense, for sure.
To philosophize a bit though, I’m called to mind a quote I came across by Professor Jay Pasachoff, of the Department of Astronomy at Williams College, puzzling over the manner in which the heating of the solar corona defies “everyday physics.” How could this be? he asks. What events are “transporting energy from the cold part to the hot part?” Pasachoff’s wry assessment is refreshing. “The problem has been solved,” he states. “It’s been solved a dozen times over, and there are a dozen different answers. So of course that means it really hasn’t been solved…”
From an interview in the National Geographic Channel documentary, “Easter Island Eclipse” (2010).
I guess I’m still just mystified as why the Sun doesn’t just blow the hell up, given that even small variations in core temperature would magnify the likelihood of of a runaway reaction a couple of orders of magnitude.
K, I’m off to ruminate and do some housekeeping, thanks again.
Tiburon says:
March 15, 2013 at 11:10 am
“It’s been solved a dozen times over, and there are a dozen different answers. So of course that means it really hasn’t been solved…”
What it means is that it is not a ‘mystery’. There are many ways it can happen, perhaps in combination. The problem is to discover which one(s) is the dominant one [if any].
I guess I’m still just mystified as why the Sun doesn’t just blow the hell up, given that even small variations in core temperature would magnify the likelihood of of a runaway reaction a couple of orders of magnitude.
The Sun’s gravity is strong enough to keep everything together.
Tiburon says:
March 15, 2013 at 11:10 am
the manner in which the heating of the solar corona defies “everyday physics.” How could this be? he asks. What events are “transporting energy from the cold part to the hot part?”
It actually does not defy physics. Something like that happens every time you strike a match, make fire by rubbing sticks together, brake your car [brake pads become hot], bore a hole, etc. It is all about converting one form of energy into another [mechanical to heat].
lsvalgaard says:
March 15, 2013 at 1:04 pm
Tiburon says:
March 15, 2013 at 11:10 am
the manner in which the heating of the solar corona defies “everyday physics.” How could this be? he asks. What events are “transporting energy from the cold part to the hot part?”
It actually does not defy physics. Something like that happens every time you strike a match, make fire by rubbing sticks together, brake your car [brake pads become hot], bore a hole, etc. It is all about converting one form of energy into another [mechanical to heat].
Can we say the external heating is happening during an expansion process? And expansion is necessary? Do the distances change during solar cycle? polarity?
I can’t wrap my head around that hollow sun thingy, makes my head collaspe, must be a sign. (sarc)
The Cas A image looks like it got smacked from the other side by a large solar diving space object or maybe not a hollow core, but blew out a chamber(s)?
1phobosgrunt says:
March 15, 2013 at 5:35 pm
Can we say the external heating is happening during an expansion process? And expansion is necessary? Do the distances change during solar cycle? polarity?
There is some agreement that waves of various kinds heat the corona, much as when you crack a whip. An important point is that the material gets thinner and thinner and so the same energy has larger and larger effect.
I can’t wrap my head around that hollow sun thingy, makes my head collaspe, must be a sign. (sarc) …The Cas A image looks like it got smacked from the other side by a large solar diving space object or maybe not a hollow core, but blew out a chamber(s)?
The Sun is, of course, not hollow. If it were, it would collapse instantly. This is close to what happens in a supernova: the internal pressure generated by the fusion process falls away once iron is reached and with no internal support the star collapses [to become a much smaller neutron star] in a very short time, about one second. The collapsing material when hitting the neutron star bounces back out and that is the explosion we see. This is a messy process and can easily be lopsided and irregular.
@Lsvalgaard
Please forgive my ignorant question but I hope you’ll answer it anyway. If one could touch the surface of the sun what would the density feel like? Also, what is the density/pressure at the core believed to be?
Thanks,