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describe how the sum creates energy in it core.?
10 Answers
- Doctor WhyLv 71 decade agoFavorite Answer
It's all about nuclear fusion.
It is interesting (and relevant) to note that long before the existence of fusion was theorized, scientists had carefully weighed most of the elements that are on the periodic table. Many thought that the atoms were made up of smaller building blocks, but a problem arose when they tried to calculate what those building blocks were like - the numbers didn't add up.
Take a carbon nucleus, for example. It has six protons and six neutrons, so if we follow the convention that scientists used and assign each a weight of 1 atomic mass unit (amu) then we can say that a carbon nucleus weighs 12 amu.
Now, you would expect that a magnesium nucleus which has 12 protons and 12 neutrons would therefore weigh 24 amu. But it doesn't. It's close: 23.9850423 amu... but not exactly the same. And until scientists understood some of the forces involved, it kept them fiddling with their instruments and scratching their heads. Because matter wasn't supposed to just disappear like that. Not even small amounts.
Einstein and fusion solved the problem. In a very famous equation, he suggested that mass could disappear if it turned into energy (and vice versa). This ended up explaining a lot about those slightly different weights on the periodic table. Heavier elements are more stable than lighter ones, up until you get to iron. Because the atoms want to be more stable, you can get energy out by turning light elements into heavy ones. LOTS of energy, as it turns out.
The problem is that protons normally want to have absolutely nothing to do with each other. They are all positively charged and repel each other with a force a billion billion billion billion times stronger than gravity. So if you want to make heavy stuff from light stuff, it takes a LOT of energy just to force the light stuff close enough together to turn into the heavy stuff. Despite the difference in strength, gravity can do the trick because it works over much longer distances.
So if you get enough light stuff together in one spot, eventually all the pressure and heat generated from friction and gravity will push a few atoms close enough together that they turn into a heavier atom, and release that energy mentioned above. If you could turn just 1 kg of carbon into slightly less than a kg of magnesium in this way, you would produce an amount of energy roughly equal to 26,000 tons of TNT. The sun is working mostly with hydrogen as a starting material, but the sample principle applies.
And that's where the sun gets all it's energy.
As a curious side note, the reverse of the process is how we get energy from radioactive material - the atoms have become so large at that point that they are more stable (and thus give off energy) when they break up into smaller pieces. Those atoms do so spontaneously on their own, but we can speed up the process and get more out of it, just like a piece of paper slowly yellows and turns to ash if left in the air, but burns completely up in seconds if we take a match to it.
- Dr WLv 71 decade ago
sun. I guess the simple answer is through nuclear fusion
Hydrogen is an atom with 1 proton and 1 electron. (sometimes 1 or 2 neutrons too). Two hydrogens fuse together to form an atom with 2 protons and 2 electrons (helium). in that process, some energy is released. What causes the fusion to occur in the first place is high pressure due to gravity and high temperature due to other ongoing fusion reactions.
- ?Lv 45 years ago
i will answer in keeping with between the main modern-day theories i examine. before the universe grew to become into created, there have been what are called the "Higgs Fields", fields of quantum potential. those fields get a random potential point, that would exchange at any time to the different point, randomly. in considered one of those fields, there grew to become right into a quantum disturbance, that led the Higgs field to alter into volatile, and subsequently to the enormous Bang. As for the regulations of physics, for the duration of the 1st moments of the universe, all the 4 forces (Gravity, Electromagnetism, solid interplay and susceptible interplay) have been a million, simply by rather hight potential density, temperature, and tension, and slowly grew to alter into distinctive, first gravity, then electromagnetism, then the final 2. additionally, faster or later an unknown reaction called baryogenesis violated the conservation of baryon sort, extra suitable to an exceedingly small a good distance better than quarks and leptons over antiquarks and antileptons—of the order of one section in 30 million. it is what made our universe to have remember and not organic potential or antimatter.
- SkyhawkLv 51 decade ago
The immense pressure and temperature at the core of the sun causes fusion between hydrogen atoms and electrons.
The product of this fusion is helium.
The mass of the helium is less than the mass of the hydrogen+the electrons.
According to the Laws of the conservation of mass, thus there is a by-product of a small amount of energy.
This happens millions and millions of times, producing vast amounts of energy.
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- Anonymous1 decade ago
Using the concepts presented, you might determine mass acceleration within our sun at a distance of 400 miles from its center. It is greater than that of the speed of light. There is no manner by which what is proposed is able to form in an area where mass cannot exist. In our planet the distance from the core where mass cannot exist for the same reason is 0.716 miles.
http://timebones.blogspot.com/ has, somewhere in it, a short writing entitled "The Time Structure of Our Solar System"
- Billy ButtheadLv 71 decade ago
The sun starts by fusing hydrogen into helium,then lithium.
The process is very slow in the sun so it can live for billions of years as opposed to less than ten-million for some massive stars.
- 1 decade ago
It is Nuclear Fusion. Hydrogen into Helium and then into Lithium. It lives longer than larger stars because its rate of fusion is slower than larger stars.
- morningfoxnorthLv 61 decade ago
Eugene N is pointing you to the correct answer.
But he forgot to tell you how slow the reactions are. For the first reaction, where 2 protons fuse, it takes on average 7.9 billion years for any given proton to fuse with another.
- 1 decade ago
Use spell check and proof read your questions! That will start you in the right direction to your answer!!!