how does the sun create it's heat?

Answer 1

If you ever heard of Einstein's equation E=mc², then you are half way taught. If mass is large then the energy will too. The letter c is a constant equal to the speed of light, 3.0 × 108. Therefore mass can generate energy. Thermonuclear fusion is the process of combining atoms, specifically in the Sun they are hydrogen atoms. Fusion can take place inside the Sun because its core is so hot. As we mentioned before, the Sun contains about 70% hydrogen, of which about 27% have fused into helium atoms. Two hydrogen atoms cannot just combine because of the electrical repulsion they have against one another. Remember that in electromagnetic forces, like charges repel and unlike charges attract each other. At such a collision, hydrogen can be brought together so that the electrical repulsion between their protons is overwhelmed by another force called nuclear, or strong force. In order to achieve such collisions, temperature must be high to make atoms travel fast enough. Hydrogen is an atom which consists of one proton and one electron. Helium contains 2 protons and 2 electrons. Combining two hydrogen protons make a hydrogen with two protons, a positron (positive electron), a neutrino (neutron with possibly no mass), and energy.

1H + 1H --> 2H + e+ + v + Energy

If you add up the product mass, it will total up to something less than the reactants. This is where Einstein's equation comes in. The missing mass was converted into generated energy. The product 2H is an isotope of hydrogen, meaning it differs in neutrons to the actual hydrogen with no neutrons. The v is the neutrino. In the second step, two different isotopes of hydrogen collide to form a hydrogen with 3 protons plus a high energy photon as a gamma ray (very short wavelength of the electromagnetic spectrum) and again energy from the missing mass.

1H + 2H --> 3H + y + Energy

The third and final step is when two 3H fuse together. They produce a 4H plus two "normal" hydrogen atoms and again energy from missing mass.

3H + 3H --> 4H + 1H + 1H + Energy

Since six hydrogen atoms are required to return a helium atom, however, two come back, therefore to fuse together a helium atom, it requires a net of four hydrogen atoms. Adding all the energy adds up to the total energy released by exploding 100 billion-megaton H-bombs per second! All this for the sunshine we get here on Earth.

Answer 2

The mass of the sun is so great that there is extreme pressure at the center of the sun. In that part of the sun Hydrogen atoms are pushed so close to each other that some merge and become Helium atoms. The transition from Hydrogen to Helium is an exothermic(energy producing) reaction. Helium nuclei require less energy to hold themselves together and therefore there is energy left over which takes the form of heat and electromagnetic waves(both visible light and other frequencies). The amount of energy released by the combining of four hydrogen atoms is many time the amount of energy released by any conventional chemical reaction such as hydrogen and oxygen combining to produce water. The released energy affects the left over hydrogen by making the Hydrogen Atoms move very rapidly and even more hydrogen atoms bump into each other and produce more Helium. This results in even more energy being released.

Answer 3

Let's see if I can balance the technichal answers and simple answers out.

When atoms smack into eachother they bounce off. This is because of something called the Strong Nuclear Force. That force holds the center of the atom togeather and pushes things that aren't part of it away. It's like hitting an invisible wall. But, if they hit eachother hard enough, they 'go through' the wall and fuse. The atoms become part of eachother.

Some little parts of both Atom's Nuclei, their centers, called Neutrons are destroyed.. but they don't just disappear, they are converted into energy.

Energy = Matter * The Speed of Light Squared
E=MC^2

So, we know that the speed of light is really, really fast.. So the speed of light squared has got to be a huge number.. then that's multiplyed by how much matter is being converted, which leaves you with how much energy you get.

In other words, a little bit of matter converts into a whole lot of energy.

That's what happens in the Sun, and that's where it's heat comes from.

Answer 4

seeing as the sun is a star, it creates heat like all others, a star is a self luminous body, that generates energy from it's interior. Because of the sensetivity of the rate of energy production in a stellar interior to the mass of a star, the mass luminosity relation provides an important test of theories of stellar interiors.

Answer 5

Core

The core of the Sun is considered to extend from the center to about 0.2 solar radii. It has a density of up to 150,000 kg/m3 (150 times the density of water on Earth) and a temperature of close to 13,600,000 Kelvins (by contrast, the surface of the Sun is close to 5,785 Kelvins (1/2350th of the core)). Through most of the Sun's life, energy is produced by nuclear fusion through a series of steps called the p-p (proton-proton) chain; this process converts hydrogen into helium. The core is the only location in the Sun that produces an appreciable amount of heat via fusion: the rest of the star is heated by energy that is transferred outward from the core. All of the energy produced by fusion in the core must travel through many successive layers to the solar photosphere before it escapes into space as sunlight or kinetic energy of particles.

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. The rate of nuclear fusion depends strongly on density, so the fusion rate in the core is in a self-correcting equilibrium: a slightly higher rate of fusion would cause the core to heat up more and expand slightly against the weight of the outer layers, reducing the fusion rate and correcting the perturbation; and a slightly lower rate would cause the core to cool and shrink slightly, increasing the fusion rate and again reverting it to its present level.

The high-energy photons (gamma and X-rays) released in fusion reactions take a long time to reach the Sun's surface, slowed down by the indirect path taken, as well as by constant absorption and reemission at lower energies in the solar mantle. Estimates of the "photon travel time" range from as much as 50 million years[7] to as little as 17,000 years.[8] After a final trip through the convective outer layer to the transparent "surface" of the photosphere, the photons escape as visible light. Each gamma ray in the Sun's core is converted into several million visible light photons before escaping into space. Neutrinos are also released by the fusion reactions in the core, but unlike photons they very rarely interact with matter, so almost all are able to escape the Sun immediately. For many years measurements of the number of neutrinos produced in the Sun were much lower than theories predicted, a problem which was recently resolved through a better understanding of the effects of neutrino oscillation.

Answer 6

Nuclear Fusion of Hydrogen to form helium. In this process mass is being converted into energy.

Remember
E=m*c^2

Answer 7

NUCLEAR FUSION HYDROGEN
there is hydrogen in the core of the sun. That's what causes nuclear fusion which lets off electrogmagentic energy (heat light..blah blah). that's how we get it!

Hope that was enough

Answer 8

By nuclear reactions. It is turning hydrogen into helium in a similar way to a hydrogen bomb, at a rate equivalent to billions of hydrogen bombs exploding every second!

Answer 9

it fuses small atoms into larger ones (called fusion... usually it pushes two hydrogens together to make helium), and the resulting energy from that reaction is really high

Answer 10

its either fusion or fission but I forgot which lol