If a small parcel of the Sun’s outer layer were instantly cooled to Earth-normal pressures while maintaining temperature, how would it behave relative to its current state?
Answer
It would behave very much like a gas, as electrons recombine with nuclei
The persistence of the 'gas' description relates to the hypothetical behavior of the material if the extreme conditions causing ionization were removed. If a sample from the photosphere were dramatically cooled at Earth-normal pressures, the thermal energy driving the ionization would be removed. This rapid drop in energy would cause the freed electrons to immediately recombine with the atomic nuclei. This process reverts the material from plasma back into a neutral gas composed of H and He atoms, demonstrating that while the current condition is plasma, the underlying material originated as gas.
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