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Asked by to Áine, Ciarán, Eoin, Lydia, Victoria on 13 Nov 2014.
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Lydia Bach answered on 13 Nov 2014:
Hey!
The sun is powered by nuclear fusion, which takes place when hydrogen or helium nuclei smash into each other and fuse to become heavier. That releases a lot of energy. That happens at temperatures of 15 million degrees in the suns core.
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Ciarán O'Brien answered on 13 Nov 2014:
The sun powers the sun!
What I mean is that the sun is a massive ball of hydrogen gas, soo massive that its own gravity crushes and squeezes the hydrogen at its core to such high temperature and pressure that two hydrogen atoms can fuse together and become helium, releasing a lot of heat and light, which can nudge other hydrogen atoms into fusing, which can nudge OTHER atoms into fusing, and so on and so on. It’s a nuclear chain reaction, like an atom bomb, only the sun is SO huge it’s more like millions of those bombs going off every second.
There is so much hydrogen in the sun that it’s been doing this for billions of years, and will be able to keep doing it for billions more. And it generates so much energy that even here, nearly 150,000,000Km away, the sun’s heat can set fire to things on a dry day!
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