Re: what are radio waves emitted by the sun and how?

Hi Zoey,

Radio waves from the Sun are generated by the charged particles which make up the outer layers of the Sun. The outer parts of the Sun are tremendously active and turbulent places.They are also so hot that their atoms have been split up into postive and negative charged particles (atomic nuclei and electrons). These particles are swirled around by the Sun's magnetic field and accelerated by shock waves in the Sun's corona and in the solar wind. Every time one of these particles is accelerated or decelerated a radio wave is emitted and the overall effect of all of these motions taken together is to broadcast a noisy mixture of radio waves which can be heard as static on the radio.

For some more information about the Sun,and some pictures of the activity on the Sun's surface, you might want to take a look at these two web sites and the pages that are linked from them:

• A Virtual Tour of the Sun
• The Nine Planets: The Sun