how much energy does the sun use to make heat?

Answer 1

Because of its proximity to the earth, and because it is such a typical star, the sun is a unique resource for the study of stellar phenomena. No other star can be studied in such detail. The star closest to the sun is 4.3 light-years (4 × 1013 km/2.5 × 1013 mi) away. To observe features on its surface comparable to those that can be seen routinely on the sun would require a telescope almost 30 km (18.6 mi) in diameter. Such a telescope, moreover, would have to be put into space to avoid distortions caused by the earth's atmosphere.

The Sun is an ordinary G2 star, one of more than 100 billion stars in our galaxy.



diameter: 1,390,000 km.
mass: 1.989e30 kg
temperature: 5800 K (surface)
15,600,000 K (core)
The Sun is by far the largest object in the solar system. It contains more than 99.8% of the total mass of the Solar System (Jupiter contains most of the rest).
The Sun is personified in many mythologies: the Greeks called it Helios and the Romans called it Sol.

The Sun is, at present, about 75% hydrogen and 25% helium by mass (92.1% hydrogen and 7.8% helium by number of atoms); everything else ("metals") amounts to only 0.1%. This changes slowly over time as the Sun converts hydrogen to helium in its core.



The outer layers of the Sun exhibit differential rotation: at the equator the surface rotates once every 25.4 days; near the poles it's as much as 36 days. This odd behaviour is due to the fact that the Sun is not a solid body like the Earth. Similar effects are seen in the gas planets. The differential rotation extends considerably down into the interior of the Sun but core of the Sun rotates as a solid body.

Conditions at the Sun's core (approximately the inner 25% of its radius) are extreme. The temperature is 15.6 million Kelvin and the pressure is 250 billion atmospheres. At the centre of the core the Sun's density is more than 150 times that of water.

The Sun's energy output (3.86e33 ergs/second or 386 billion billion megawatts) is produced by nuclear fusion reactions. Each second about 700,000,000 tons of hydrogen are converted to about 695,000,000 tons of helium and 5,000,000 tons (=3.86e33 ergs) of energy in the form of gamma rays. As it travels out toward the surface, the energy is continuously absorbed and re-emitted at lower and lower temperatures so that by the time it reaches the surface, it is primarily visible light. For the last 20% of the way to the surface the energy is carried more by convection than by radiation.

The surface of the Sun, called the photosphere, is at a temperature of about 5800 K. Sunspots are "cool" regions, only 3800 K (they look dark only by comparison with the surrounding regions). Sunspots can be very large, as much as 50,000 km in diameter. Sunspots are caused by complicated and not very well understood interactions with the Sun's magnetic field.

A small region known as the chromosphere lies above the photosphere.

The highly rarefied region above the chromosphere, called the corona, extends millions of kilometers into space but is visible only during eclipses (left). Temperatures in the corona are over 1,000,000 K.

The Sun's magnetic field is very strong (by terrestrial standards) and very complicated. Its magnetosphere (also known as the heliosphere) extends well beyond Pluto.

In addition to heat and light, the Sun also emits a low density stream of charged particles (mostly electrons and protons) known as the solar wind which propagates throughout the solar system at about 450 km/sec. The solar wind and the much higher energy particles ejected by solar flares can have dramatic effects on the Earth ranging from power line surges to radio interference to the beautiful aurora borealis.

The solar wind has large effects on the tails of comets and even has measurable effects on the trajectories of spacecraft.

Spectacular loops and prominences are often visible on the Sun's limb (left).

The Sun's output is not entirely constant. Nor is the amount of sunspot activity. There was a period of very low sunspot activity in the latter half of the 17th century called the Maunder Minimum. It coincides with an abnormally cold period in northern Europe sometimes known as the Little Ice Age. Since the formation of the solar system the Sun's output has increased by about 40%.

The Sun is about 4.5 billion years old. Since its birth it has used up about half of the hydrogen in its core. It will continue to radiate "peacefully" for another 5 billion years or so (although its luminosity will approximately double in that time). But eventually it will run out of hydrogen fuel. It will then be forced into radical changes which, though commonplace by stellar standards, will result in the total destruction of the Earth.

NASA Sun Earth Media Viewer: Live Solar Images
http://ds9.ssl.berkeley.edu/viewer/flash/flash.html

Developed jointly by NASA and the University of California at Berkeley, this
elegant site allows the general public to look at a number of truly
astonishing images of the sun, as rendered from various telescopes and other
image-capturing devices such as NASA's Image Spacecraft. On the main page,
there are twelve different views (all updated daily). Visitors can zoom in
and out around areas of interest and read a helpful description of what they
are observing, as well as how the image was captured. The Illustrations
section is another treat, as viewers can peruse 12 high quality
illustrations of such important phenomena as the electromagnetic radiation
into the atmosphere and the four phases of matter. Within the visualization
section, viewers can watch short movies of oxygen atoms in the near-Earth
environment and take a virtual tour of the Earth's magnetosphere. The site
is completed with a number of interviews with scientists answering questions
about solar wind, the sun, Venus, and auroras.



The Sun's satellites
There are nine planets and a large number of smaller objects orbiting the Sun.
Earth Will Not Be Swallowed by the Sun


The astronomy textbooks will have to be rewritten, say astrophysicists at the University of Sussex who have re-examined standard calculations about solar evolution and the distant future of the Earth. The textbooks tell us that one day the Sun will burn up its nuclear fuel and expand to an enormous size, finally engulfing its inner planets including Earth.

However, using the latest data based on real stars, the University of Sussex researchers suggest a (slightly) less catastrophic future for our planet.

As their hydrogen fuel runs out at the end of their 'lives', stars like the Sun expand to become a red supergiant of several hundred times their initial diameter. Most astronomers expect the solar red supergiant to swallow Mercury, Venus and then Earth in about 7.5 billion years' time, when it has expanded beyond the orbit of our planet.

But Earth may survive after all, say the Sussex astronomers, if an important extra detail is considered: the ongoing loss of mass and weakening gravity while a star is a red supergiant.

Dr Robert Smith, Reader in Astronomy, explains the significance of this effect: "Taking this into account, the orbit of the Earth would increase beyond the Sun's outer atmosphere by a small but crucial margin at all phases of the Sun's evolution - allowing our planet to continue."

The new calculations are published in the current issue of Astronomy & Geophysics. They were made by Dr Smith together with Dr Klaus-Peter Schröder from the University's Astronomy Centre and Kevin Apps, the famous student stargazer who co-discovered 10 planets while still an undergraduate at Sussex.

Although the Earth may survive, long before then its surface will have become too hot to sustain human life. But the good news from the team of researchers is that it will be 5.7 billion years before our planet becomes a no-go zone for life - about 200 million years later than previously thought.

So, ask the Sussex astronomers, is there anywhere in the solar system that would be safe, or does our survival depend on finding another star system? Is it possible to hop outwards from one planet or satellite to the next, always keeping ahead of the Sun? There are periods, they calculate, when we could in principle survive on one of the outer planets such as Mars, but there will be long gaps when none of them is habitable.

Dr Smith concludes: "We had better get used to the idea that we shall need to build our own survival capsules - the planets are simply too far apart for planet-hopping to be a viable solution. Perhaps this is the ultimate justification for developing an International Space Station."

Source: Sussex University Press Release





Planet Distance
(000 km)
Radius
(km)
Mass
(kg)
Discovered by: Date
Mercury 57,910 2439 3.30e23
Venus 108,200 6052 4.87e24
Earth 149,600 6378 5.98e24
Mars 227,940 3397 6.42e23
Jupiter 778,330 71492 1.90e27
Saturn 1,426,940 60268 5.69e26
Uranus 2,870,990 25559 8.69e25 Herschel 1781
Neptune 4,497,070 24764 1.02e26 Galle 1846
Pluto 5,913,520 1160 1.31e22 Tombaugh 1930

Answer 2

The amount of energy that the suns use is not known, but:
.
At the Sun's core, nuclear fusion produces enormous amounts of energy, through the process of converting hydrogen nuclei into helium nuclei (nuclear fusion),

Although the nuclear output of the sun is not entirely consistent, each second the Sun converts about 600,000,000 tons of hydrogen nuclei into helium nuclei. These fusion reactions convert part of these atoms' mass (roughly 4 million tons) into energy, and release an enormous amount of this heat and light energy into the Solar System. In these fusion reactions, the Sun loses 4 million tons of mass each second. The Sun will run out of fuel in about 5 billion (5,000,000,000) years. When this happens, the Sun will explode into a planetary nebula, a giant shell of gas that will destroy the planets in the Solar System (including Earth).

Answer 3

None.

However, the sun does convert a massive amount of atomic energy into kinetic energy, or heat.

Answer 4

frequency cycles of cosmic radiation incorporate power. The solar's radiation is composed of power, and warmth may well be one bi-manufactured from power transference to a diverse device, at the same time with earth. Infrared being the 'warmth' spectrum area of the EM spectrum. Cosmic radiation resonance to the 'device', warmth being one...if the frequency is nice, the earth heats up, which it does. power from the solar trapped in coal? properly, it became the organic and organic lifeforms of the classic international, like plant life, which saved the solar's power via photosynthesis. All those planet's converted the solar's power into yet another style power, interior it particularly is cellular's. All those cells became into coal, it particularly is like locking away the solar's power. solar's power being vibrational or frequency. The plant's vibrated at the same time as absorbing the solar's gentle. To launch that particular same power, the coal might desire to burn via vibration, utilising the flame (which reason molecular vibration), that's a style of 'freeing agent' to extract power from the dormant coal. The flame works in the infrared band of the Em spectrum and additionally seen.....in spite of the indisputable fact that it is likewise vibrational.