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Temperature on the surface of the sun calculated with the Stefan-Boltzmann-rule

Physics Asked on January 14, 2021

In a German Wikipedia page, the following calculation for the temperature on the surface of the Sun is made:

$sigma=5.67*10^{-8}frac{W}{m^2K^4}$ (Stefan-Boltzmann constant)

$S = 1367frac{W}{m^2}$ (solar constant)

$D = 1.496*10^{11} m$ (Earth-Sun average distance)

$R = 6.963*10^8 m$ (radius of the Sun)

$T = (frac{P}{sigma A})^frac{1}{4} = (frac{S4 pi D^2}{sigma 4pi R^2})^frac{1}{4}=(frac{SD^2}{sigma R^2})^frac{1}{4} = 5775.8 K$

(Wikipedia gives 5777K because the radius was rounded to $6.96*10^8m$)

This calculation is perfectly clear.

But in Gerthsen Kneser Vogel there is an exercise where Sherlock Holmes estimated the
temperature of the sun only knowing the root of the fraction of D and R.
Lets say, he estimated this fraction to 225, so the square root is about
15, how does he come to 6000 K ? The value $(frac{S}{sigma})^frac{1}{4}$
has about the value 400. It cannot be the approximate average temperature
on earth, which is about 300K. What do I miss ?

2 Answers

The relationship of temperature between a planet and a star based on a radiative energy balance is given by the following equation (from Wikipedia):

energy balance

$T_p = temperature of the planet$
$T_s = temperature of the star$
$R_s = radius of the star$
$alpha = albedo of the planet$
$epsilon = average emissivity of the planet$
$D = distance between star and planet$

Therefore if Sherlock knows $sqrt{frac{R_s}{D}} = 0.06818$ and can estimate the Earth's temperature $T_p$ as well as $alpha$ and $epsilon$ then he can calculate the temperature on the surface of the sun which is the unknown variable $T_s$.

Both $alpha$ and $epsilon$ have true values between zero and one. Say Sherlock assumed $alpha = 0.5$ and $epsilon = 1$ (perfect blackbody). Estimating the temperature of the Earth $T_p$ to be 270 K and plugging in all the numbers we have:

enter image description here

Which is very near the true average temperature of the surface of the sun, 5870 K. Case closed!

Correct answer by pentane on January 14, 2021

A rough estimate of a body's temperature in the solar system is $$T=frac{280K}{sqrt{D_{AU}}}$$ if we calculate the AU fraction from the Sun's "edge" to its center, R over D = $4.65x10^-3$, and substitute this into the formula, the Sun's temperature would be about 4100K. Not very close to your 5776 K, but utilizes the square root of the R D fraction.

The formula reflects effective temperatures. However peak, so called sub-solar temperatures, are $sqrt{2}$ times effective temperatures, which would yield about 5800K. Clever Sherlock!

Answered by Michael Luciuk on January 14, 2021

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