Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The directly visible outer layer or atmosphere of a star, especially of the sun.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun An envelop of light; specifically, the luminous envelop, supposed to consist of incandescent matter, surrounding the sun.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A sphere of light; esp., the luminous envelope of the sun.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun astronomy A visible surface layer of a star, and especially that of a sun.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun the intensely luminous surface of a star (especially the sun)

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

photo- + -sphere

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Examples

  • But compressed gas in the thicker, denser part of the Sun mashes together all those energies, spreading them out, so it emits white light (that layer of the Sun is called the photosphere).

    Detailed Pictures Of The Sun Let You Get Up Close And Personal With The Star (PHOTOS) The Huffington Post 2010

  • But compressed gas in the thicker, denser part of the Sun mashes together all those energies, spreading them out, so it emits white light (that layer of the Sun is called the photosphere).

    Detailed Pictures Of The Sun Let You Get Up Close And Personal With The Star (PHOTOS) The Huffington Post 2010

  • The surface layer of the Sun that we can see is called the photosphere and has a temperature of about 5800 degrees Kelvin.

    SciFi, Fantasy & Horror Collectibles - Part 1067 2009

  • The photosphere is the surface that emits solar radiation to space.

    Solar radiation 2010

  • This paper suggests that plasma motion in an active region in the photosphere is the source of large electric currents.

    Up, Up and Away! Helium Balloon Telescope Explores the Sun | Universe Today 2009

  • An elastic fluid, now known as the photosphere, is in course of continual formation on the dark rugged surface of the solar mass; and rising, on account of its specific lightness, it forms the pores in the stratum of reflecting clouds; then, combining with other gases, it produces the irregularities or furrows in the luminous cloud-region.

    The Story of the Herschels Anonymous 1886

  • What we observe is the surface-layer, the so-called photosphere, in which the cold of space produces the condensation of the gases into those luminous clouds which we see in our drawings and photographs as "rice grains" or "willow leaves."

    The Story of the Heavens 1876

  • The surface of the Sun, known as the photosphere, reaches temperatures of 5,000 degrees.

    EurekAlert! - Breaking News 2009

  • The surface of the Sun, known as the photosphere, reaches temperatures of 5,000 degrees.

    Space News From SpaceDaily.Com 2009

  • The cloud-like character which he attributed to the radiant shell of the sun (first named by Schröter the "photosphere") is borne out by all recent investigations; he observed its mottled or corrugated aspect, resembling, as he described it, the roughness on the rind of an orange; showed that "faculæ" are elevations or heaped-up ridges of the disturbed photospheric matter; and threw out the idea that spots may ensue from an excess of the ordinary luminous emissions.

    A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century Fourth Edition 1874

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