If the sun is a star, why does it burn? Do all stars burn?

Answer 1

All the stars you see in the sky are suns. There are many planets surrounding them which you don't see.

Answer 2

To be more exact, a star does not burn as much as it explodes. A natural version of a very long term nuclear bomb. There's so much hydrogen that it has gone off like this for more than a few million years and will continue for a lot longer. Now, given that Sol (the sun) is a rather puny star we can accept the idea that the other stars are also in a state of continuous nuclear explosions. So yes, the sun does 'burn' and the rest all do, or did, burn as well.

Answer 3

The sun doesn't burn in the sense that things burn here on Earth. On Earth, "burn" means to combust by chemically reacting with oxygen, but as there is a negligible amount of oxygen in space, this is impossible.

What the sun actually does, like every other star in the universe, is produce extreme amounts of light and heat energy by a series of nuclear reactions. The Sun is made mostly of hydrogen atoms. The sun is so massive that it's gravitational pull on itself forces these atoms together with enough energy to cause a nuclear fusion reaction, turning two atoms of hydrogen (probably deuterium) into an atom of helium and giving off massive amounts of energy. This is the same with all stars, though some produce more energy than others.

Hope this helps.

Answer 4

The sun our star or should I say all stars burn, not because they are made of gas, even though it is a combustible gas called hydrogen they could not do that because there is no oxygen to assist in a burning scenario.
but they do create intense and immense releases of heat and other forms of radiation because under immense pressure created by the stars own gravitational weight on the hydrogen gas,it creates the phenomenon of fusion which is hydrogen gas atoms that are squeezed together under emmence pressure and fuse into the element of helium and in this process nuclei are released which creates the heat or burning describe by the question asked. how does a star burn? also, yes the sun is a star. our solar systems sun or star eventually the sun will fuse all of it hydrogen into helium and the incredible explosive and expanding force will be overwhelmed by its gravitational force and shrink to a less energetic and smaller star called a white dwarf about the size of our earth and eventually will more then likely be recycled once again into another of the universes phenomenon or another star or the debrie that litters our known universe

Answer 5

The sun is a star, and its "fire" is caused by a nuclear fusion reaction that converts hydrogen to helium. This reaction releases energy that is the light and heat we observe.

Generally, we can say that all stars burn fuel in this similar manner.

From one website:

"Energy generated in the Sun's core takes a million years to reach its surface. Every second 700 million tons of hydrogen are converted into helium ashes. In the process 5 million tons of pure energy is released."

Answer 6

There's no 'if' when you say the sun is a star.

We say that the sun is "burning," but it is not burning in a chemical sense like wood or oil. The sun is kept hot by nuclear reactions taking place inside of it, but these are different from the reactions in a nuclear
reactor.

Nuclear reactors split heavy atoms (like uranium) to release energy. In contrast, the sun fuses together light atoms (like hydrogen) to release energy.

The hydrogen reaction is more complicated than just four hydrogen atoms (mass 1) fusing together into a helium (mass 4).

The correct sequence is two normal hydrogen nuclei (protons) combine into a heavy hydrogen nucleus (with an electron left over). Then a normal and heavy hydrogen combine into a light helium. Then two light heliums combine to form a normal helium (with two protons left over).

Answer 7

All star burns. All of them are glowing because they are burning. And this burning is not like a camp fire. Its like millions of nuclear reactor is working together.

They keep burning till they change into a black hole.

In relation to other answers -
1. Stars are made of gas or burning gas but it is not burning because it is made of gas.
2. SUN is not the biggest star, rather its very small comparative to others. We see it big as it is much nearer to us.

Answer 8

Actually, yes. The stars are nothing more than glowing balls of burning gases. When you see a falling star, all that simply means is that a piece of the massive ball has broken off and when it stops burning, it gives us the appearance of a falling star disappearing in space.

Answer 9

Yes all stars burn and all stars eventully burn out. The sun hasent burnt out yet because its the biggest star.

Answer 10

sun is surely a star but it burns because of the explosions done of hydrogen in it & all stars dont burn they do the same thing but in smaller quantity to give out light

Answer 11

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Yesss...
The sun is one of 100,000 million stars in our galaxy. It is the star around which the planets of our solar system revolve. Many other stars are bigger and brighter. It is only because the sun is so near that it appears so huge and bright. Light from the sun takes about 8.5 minutes to reach the earth.
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