• Question: what is the sun made of, will it ever disappear

    Asked by micheal to Aggelos, Andrew, Eileen, Naomi, Shane on 13 Nov 2012.
    • Photo: Shane Bergin

      Shane Bergin answered on 13 Nov 2012:

      Yes it will. Our sun is made mainly of hydrogen. It’s a giant nuclear reactor that’s taking 2 pieces of hydrogen and smashing them together at really really high temperatures to produce helium and energy. this ‘energy’ is felt by us as heat, light, sun-burn etc. our sun is middle aged now.

      When the sun has no more Hydrogen to burn up, it will start burning the helium its producing now. it’ll get bigger and hotter. it will turn the helium into lithium. when the helium is all gone it’ll burn up the lithium and produce another element.. this continues through the periodic table until it gets to iron. then the burning stops and the star dies. now you can see how ALL the elements in the universe are created.. stars!

      it will live for a few more billion years. it’s not a very big star compared to others that we know of. this means when it gets older it’ll fade away rather than explode.

    • Photo: Aggelos Zacharopoulos

      Aggelos Zacharopoulos answered on 13 Nov 2012:

      @micheal
      as @Shane says above, our Sun will burn out one day once it has used all its hydrogen. I am not sure I ll have a job then 🙁

    • Photo: Andrew Jackson

      Andrew Jackson answered on 13 Nov 2012:

      im not sure any us will have a job then 🙂

    • Photo: Naomi Elster

      Naomi Elster answered on 14 Nov 2012:

      Yes. The sun is a star just like any other star. We revolve around it and it gives us the light and warmth we need to live, so we tend to think of it as being somehow different from the other bright lights we see in the sky at night. But eventually it will get old and it will run out of things to burn, as Shane said, and it will disappear.

      It can be a frightening thought but it’s billions of years away – our jobs are safe at least for our lifetimes!! 🙂

    • Photo: Eileen Diskin

      Eileen Diskin answered on 14 Nov 2012:

      Yeah, we dont really need to worry too much about the sun disappearing, since it will be a lonnnnnnnnng time from now!

      But maybe we should think about doing some science to make a replacement, for the people who are alive when that does happen (even if its billions of years from now!) 🙂

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