PHOTOSPHERE • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Photosphere

... nucleus of the sun, we know almost nothing. The central body or nucleus is surrounded by a brilliantly luminous envelope or layer of vaporous matter which is what we see when we look at the sun and which the astronomer calls the photosphere. ...

— The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) - A Plain Story Simply Told • J. Arthur Thomson

... assailed by Sir Wm. Herschel, who maintained that it was in the condition of a perpetual magnetic storm. This notion was altered into the belief of a central dark body, surrounded by a stratum of clouds, outside of which is a photosphere of light and heat; which some made one thousand five hundred miles in depth, others four thousand. Outside of this was another layer of rose-colored clouds. To this theory Arago, Sir John Herschel and Humboldt assented. But Le Verrier declares that the facts observed during late eclipses ...

— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson