What is burning?

Question

at the center of the sun? Air would burn before it got that close.

Answer 1

By "burning" you are thinking in terms of chemical combustion. This is not what is going on inside the sun. Atoms of hydrogen are fusing (nuclear fusion -- like with an H-bomb) into helium. No oxygen is required for this process. In fact, nuclear fusion of helium into heavier elements is required in order to simply create oxygen. What IS required are immense pressures and termperatures. There are other ways to create heat than through chemical combustion.

Answer 2

Nothing is "burning" like you think of as "burning" What is happening is that hydrogen nuclei (basically protons) are being slammed together because of the high tamperature and pressure to form an isotope of hydrogen called deuterium. This deuterium and another proton are slammed togetger to form an isotope of heilum, these helium isotopes are then slammed together to for a stable isotope of helium, releasing two protons in the process. To summerize, hydrogen is being converted into helium. Everytime this fusion happens, energy is released. Some call this process "hydrogen burning" but that is really a misnomer.

Answer 3

Nothing is burning there in the conventional sense.
On earth burning is rapid oxidation, the combining of a material like a hydrocarbon with the oxygen in the air.

The sun is a giant fusion reaction. Hydrogen atoms combine to create helium atoms releasing huge amounts of energy that we see as sunlight.

Answer 4

About 74% of the Sun's mass is hydrogen, 25% is helium, and the rest is made up of trace quantities of heavier elements. 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, And all that good yet cancer causing stuff...

Answer 5

hydrogen is burning in center of sun. it was started at the beginning of the universe, and will carry on burning for 5 billion years more.

Answer 6

That's not burning in the core of stars!
stars are so dense, so the hydrogen atoms in the core interact with each other, due to the pressure. In fact, 4 hydrogen combine together and make a helium atom. and the extra mass, turns into energy.
that's why stars emit energy.

Answer 7

Nothing is "burning." The heat is created by the fusion of hydrogen atoms.

Answer 8

It's a big nuclear reactor. The energy is from the splitting and combining of hydrogen atoms.

Answer 9

It's some sort of chemical reaction that keeps it burning.

Answer 10

Supposedly, it's hydrogen.