If the sun is a star with fire, and fire needs oxygen, where do the oxygen the sun needs come from?

Answer 1

I will try to answer this on your terms.
i notice that you said 'If the sun is a star with fire...'

Here you have expressed a complete understanding of how fire works. That is as good a place to start as any because no-one fully understands how the Sun works yet.

Fire requires three components to work.

Fuel
Oxygen (or Chlorine, Ozone, others?)
Heat

Remove any one of these and the fire goes out.
Fire burns because of the energy released when Oxygen combines chemically with the Fuel (wood paper etc).

Is there a similarity with the Sun?

Sun requires

Fuel
Gravity
Heat

The fuel is the Hydrogen (mainly)
Immense gravity forces gases together to such a density that things really heat up.
Heat gets things rushing around so much that nucleuses of atoms can actually collide and fuse into heavier atoms (fusion) this causes energy to be released, heat and light. When atoms combine at the nuclear (nucleus) level they release a lot more energy than chemical combining that occurs in fires.

As gravity causes heat and fusion i am inclined to say it is like the Suns Oxygen. Meaning gravity aids fusion. it is not a good comparison but may help your understanding.

Answer 2

The Sun Is Fusing Hydrogen Plasma And Doesent Need Oxygen

Answer 3

Oxygen keeps the fire and the sun isn't quit a giant fire ball, it's more like a fusion reactor. There is in space a very little quantity of oxygen but Hydrogen burns. The sun is reactor with hydrogen and helium. It uses hydrogen and the heat keeps turns the hydrogen into helium (by fusion). Of course these nuclear activities are producing energy (heat) and light. The sun will be active and when the hydrogen ends it dies, turning it's self into a supernova or it colds down.

Answer 4

Responders have got this right, including responder neo (as opposed to his utterly asinine comment about the World Trade Center disaster). Calculations made before atomic energy was discovered showed that, if the sun was fueled by combustion, the available energy was sufficient for only a few thousand years -- clearly insufficient. Hans Bethe proposed a cycle in which protons first fuse with carbon and continue through additional fusion reactions until after four such, an alpha particle is emitted, restoring the original carbon. There is also some direct fusion of protons to each other.

Answer 5

Do u know anything about Nuclear Fusion
The sun is a star OK,
due to nuclear fusion the sun release energy
in the sun there is a lots of hydrogen and two hydrogen atoms fused together to form helium during this process a huge amount of energy is released it so hot and not reachable

Answer 6

Correct the sun is a star. But stars dont need oxygen to burn. The heat and energy given off by stars result from a process called fusion. Stars are born when hydrogen atoms are held together by intense gravity to begin fusion. Due to the force of gravity, the hydrogen atoms are excited and begin to "fuse," meaning they join together to form heavier elements like Lithium. In the process of fusion, huge amounts of energy is released in the form of heat and light. This process is similar to a hydrogen bomb, and is the reverse of a fission bomb wherein heavier elements like Uranium breakdown into lighter elements like Radium. Burning using oxygen is a process called oxidation. Stars dont oxidize, they fuse.

Answer 7

The energy of the sun comes from fusion of hydrogen atoms, much like a thermonuclear explosion. No oxygen is required.

Answer 8

there is nothing burning in the sun- the "fire" is energy released by a process called fusion wherin two hydrogen atoms fuse together to form a helium atom while releasing huge amounts of energy

Answer 9

within the core of the sun. Hydrogen (H2) and helium (HE) are the two main sources that kept the sun going.

Answer 10

The sun "burns" due to nuclear fusion.