If fire requires oxygen to burn,what do stars and other celestial bodies use in order to burn?

Question

We know there is no oxygen in space as O2 but O3 as in ozone.

Answer 1

About 74% of the Sun's mass is hydrogen, 25% is helium, and the rest is made up of trace quantities of heavier elements.
during which nuclear fusion reactions in its core fuse hydrogen into helium. Each second, more than 4 million tonnes of matter are converted into energy within the Sun's core, producing neutrinos and solar radiation.
stars generates its energy by nuclear fusion of hydrogen nuclei into helium and is in a state of hydrostatic balance, neither contracting nor expanding over time.

Energy is produced in it's core by nuclear fusion, converts hydrogen atoms and releases huge amounts of energy. it is the same reaction that occurs in a hydrogen bomb. The American physicist George Gamow had once calculated that if apinhead could be brought to the same temperature, as at the core of the sun, it would set fire to everything for 100 kilometres around. At the center of the Sun, where its density reaches up to 150,000 kg/m3 (150 times the density of water on Earth), thermonuclear reactions (nuclear fusion) convert hydrogen into helium, releasing the energy that keeps the Sun in a state of equilibrium. About 8.9 ×1037 protons (hydrogen nuclei) are converted into helium nuclei every second, releasing energy at the matter-energy conversion rate of 4.26 million tonnes per second, 383 yottawatts (383 ×1024 W) or 9.15 ×1010 megatons of TNT per second

Answer 2

Stars do not burn. Actually, burning is a process of a substance reacting with oxygen. The stars only heat up by the energy released in the fusion reactions. That's why their colour changes and they appear to be burning.

Answer 3

FYI...this is taken from HowStuffWorks.com

The Life of a Star
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As we mentioned before, stars are large balls of gases. New stars form from large, cold (10 degrees Kelvin) clouds of dust and gas (mostly hydrogen) that lie between existing stars in a galaxy.
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1) Usually, some type of gravity disturbance happens to the cloud such as the passage of a nearby star or the shock wave from an exploding supernova.
2) The disturbance causes clumps to form inside the cloud.
3) The clumps collapse inward drawing gas inward by gravity.
4) The collapsing clump compresses and heats up.
5) The collapsing clump begins to rotate and flatten out into a disc.
6) The disc continues to rotate faster, draw more gas and dust inward, and heat up.
7) After about a million years or so, a small, hot (1500 degrees Kelvin), dense core forms in the disc's center called a protostar.
8) As gas and dust continue to fall inward in the disc, they give up energy to the protostar, which heats up more
9) When the temperature of the protostar reaches about 7 million degrees Kelvin, hydrogen begins to fuse to make helium and release energy.
10) Material continues to fall into the young star for millions of years because the collapse due to gravity is greater than the outward pressure exerted by nuclear fusion. Therefore, the protostar's internal temperature increases.
11) If sufficient mass (0.1 solar mass or greater) collapses into the protostar and the temperature gets hot enough for sustained fusion, then the protostar has a massive release of gas in the form of a jet called a bipolar flow. If the mass is not sufficient, the star will not form, but instead become a brown dwarf.
12) The bipolar flow clears away gas and dust from the young star. Some of this gas and dust may later collect to form planets.

The young star is now stable in that the outward pressure from hydrogen fusion balances the inward pull of gravity. The star enters the main sequence; where it lies on the main sequence depends upon its mass.

Answer 4

Stars as large as our sun don't need atoms as large as oxygen to burn, because they don't "burn fuel" as though they're creating a combustion reaction like you'd normally see in a fire on Earth.

(Combustion is the process by which glucose and oxygen with the aid of heat is transformed into carbon dioxide, energy, and water--VERY different from nuclear fusion, of which I'm about to explain.)

Stars, at the moment their inner temperature reaches 10,000,000 K, nuclear fusion begins in its core. This process takes the nuclei of hydrogen (1 proton) atoms, fusing them together to create the nuclei of helium atoms (2 protons). Everytime just one of these reactions happens, and enormous amount of energy is released in the form of electromagnetic radiation (heat and light)--what we feel and see from our own sun, as being an example of this.

There isn't necessarily oxygen "in space" but it can be created within the heart of some stars if they're massive enough to fuse larger and larger atomic nuclei together, releasing larger and larger packets of energy (quanta). The further you delve into a star's core, the heavier the elements you'll find.

Answer 5

Stars are not on fire in the traditonal sense... They 'burn' Hydrogen in a fusion reaction which gives of enourmous amounts of heat and light and radiation but uses no oxygen.

Answer 6

They do not burn. Only carbohydrates burn. There aren't any in the stars.

The stars are colossal H bombs. The appearance of burning is simply radiation.

Answer 7

stars are fusing hydrogen to form helium, nuclear fusion is what gives off the burning light effect

Answer 8

It's because they don't "burn" in the same way that traditional earthly fire does..... study your stars a bit more closely and you'll see why.

Answer 9

>Hydrogen in a self-sustaining fusion reaction. (for stars anyway...I can't think of any other celestial bodies that "burn".)<

Answer 10

I'm no astronomer, but my understanding is that fission and fusion have nothing to do with oxygen.