Specially designed and optimized "metaphasic shields" exist which will allow a shuttle to survive for several minutes inside a star's photosphere22, even though a normal shield can survive in the star's corona for hours, where the bombardment is not much different (certainly within an order of magnitude, since it is defined by the inverse-square law). This reinforces the conclusion that there is some particular vulnerability to solar plasma.
Hehehe! I like this!
Re: Descent part 2:
In this incident, the Enterprise-D moved deep into the corona of a star using special metaphasic shields, and its chief engineer estimated that its shields would fail within 5 minutes under this bombardment.
LaForge was on the planet, being tortured by Data. The estimates were being called out by an ensign. Actually, not having seen the episode in a while, I'm not sure a time estimate was ever given, much less 5 minutes.
Re: Descent part 2:
3) The star was not a main-sequence star, and was a highly anomalous, exceptionally luminous star. However, the star did not have an unusual colour, and there were naturally habitable planets in its system. Again, this theory is unworkable.
When the scenes of the away team on the planet are shown, it is filmed with a sort of yellowish-red filter, a softer version of the color used in "Nemesis" where they find B-4's body parts.
"Brian, if I parked a supertanker in Central Park, painted it neon orange, and set it on fire, it would be less obvious than your stupidity." --RedImperator