Where does the energy that keeps the stars like our sun burning come from?

Question

Also, will all the stars like our sun simply run out of energy and die one day. Will the universe one day be totally out of shiny stars? Where does the energy come from?

Answer 1

no, the Universe will never run out of stars.All stars use Thermonucear fusion.The fuel is hydrogen.A star stars out as a dust cloud that clumps together.Eventuelly the Pressure is so high that it sparks and the stars begins.Our Sun is in it's yellow stage it will stay like that for another 5.4 billion years.When all of it's hydrogen runs out then it swells to twice it's size and incinerate mercury,Venus and make Earth uninhabbitabal.Once it is done with that it will continue to collapes on itself turning into a brown or black dwarf.Our sun isn't big enough to go supernova,When a massive star runs out of hydro gen it explodes and the core the electrons and protons are so dense there crushed into nuetrons and that makes a Neutron star.Then the Neutron star will continue to collapse in on itself to a point of almost infinate density called a singularity,or a black hole.A black hole is so strong that not even light can escape it.

Answer 2

First thing Stars do no burn, fire is a specific chemical reaction requiring oxygen a fuel and a produces carbon dioxide and water + heat. The process that makes the star burn is nuclear fusion, not burning.

OK long story short, after the big band the universe was 99% hydrogen and .5% helium. No Oxygen, Carbon, Nitrogen, Silicon, Iron, Uranium, or any other elements. They came from stars. A star is a element factory, everything you see around that isn't hydrogen, or helium was made inside a star.

After the big bang the universe was almost entirely made up of clouds of hydrogen gas. Under gravity these clouds started to collapse, pulled in by their own gravity. In the center of these clouds something special was happing. The atoms of hydrogen were getting so tightly packed together that they started colliding with each other. When this happened they heated up the center of the cloud, and this went on for billions of years until at some point there was enough heat and pressure for nuclear fusion to occur. 2 Hydrogen (H) (1 proton(p) and 1 electron(e)) atom would collide and be fused together into deuterium (1p 1e 1 neutron (n)). Then another H atom would collide with the deuterium and become fused into triterium (1p 1e 2n), then another H would fuse with the triterium and form Hellium (2p 2e 2n).

Now here's the kicker 2 H weighs slightly more then 1 deuterium, deuterium +1 H weights slighly more then triterium, triterium + 1 H weights slightly more then Helium. So what happens to make them weigh less??? The answer is the matter is converted to energy, into photons. So for most of the stars life it will fuse H into helium. When the star has no more H in it's core, then it's forced use other fuel, under the heat and pressure Helium stars to fuse into Oxygen, Carbon, and Nitrogen. Then when it runs out of helium in it's stars fusing oxygen, carbon an nitrogen into heavier and heavier elements all the way up to Iron. The star can't fuse any elements heavier then iron in it's core there isn't enough heat and pressure. When the star accumulates too much iron in it's core the processes of nuclear fusion shuts down and the star colapses under it's own gravity, as the star collapses there it gets the heat and pressure is needs to fuse iron into heavier elements, but the energy released from this last burst of fusion is more then the gravity of the star, and the star blows itself apart in a supernova returning the elements it created to the interstellar medium, until after time these elements and the left over H condense again under gravity forming a new solar system.

So as an answer to your question gravity is the energy and H is the fuel. Some day the universe will run out of hydrogen to make star out of but don't worry about that, after 13 billion years the universe is still 95% H.

Answer 3

Dear Sir:

First of all, the word "burning" is not exactly the right word to use. Burning here on Earth consists of some materials combining with oxygen in one form or another of oxidation.
In stars the majority of the gases that are contained are hydrogen and helium. Some trace gases are also there, but in a relatively minor percentage of the total volume. Now, these huge balls of gas are exactly that; i.e., massive in size.
And, the weight of all that gas is pressing down onto the core of the star with intense pressure. That intense pressure causes extremely high levels of heat. Now the good part...

Intense heat combined with intense pressure causes the nuclear fusion of hydrogen gas into helium. The nuclear fusion gives off more intense heat and radiation across a broad spectrum which includes visable light, X Rays, and Gamma Rays. Within the cores of stars, the gases are in a liquid molten state because they are under very intense pressure. Some suggest that at the center of the core of stars the molten gases are almost metallic in nature, something we have never seen here on Earth.

Stars continue to shine with light given off from this nuclear fusion until almost all of the hydrogen gas has been converted into helium. At that point they begin cooling off some and expand in size. This expansion is such that a star might increase in size 100 to 1000 times or more. In the process, it incinerates and consumes everything anywhere close to it. Our sun has been shining brightly for about 13 billion years and is expected to continue doing so for another 13 billion years. Then it will begin that process of expansion I mentioned above.

It happens that when you look into the night sky with naked eyes you are looking mainly at the stars in the Milky Way Galaxy. Some of those are in the process of dying. Some new ones are being born. This process goes on indefinitely, and will continue to do so.

Answer 4

the energy that keeps the sun burning comes from the high-pressure fusion of hydrogen in a star's core. yes, a star can run out of energy, but it takes a very long time. after a star has fused its hydrogen into helium, the surface area shrinks, and it begins to use the helium in this fusion process (first to carbon, then to oxygen, neon, silicon, and sulfur). after all of these fusion reactions have occured, only iron is left. each successive stage of fusion takes less time, with the last stages of a star's life taking days and hours instead of millions and billions of years. i don't think the universe will ever be out of stars that are performing this series of fusion reactions. after the stars use up everything, they go nova or supernova and explode, shooting gases and solids out into the universe and creating clouds of such materials. these help form the "stellar nurseries" of nebulae where new stars are born and go through these same processes.

Answer 5

The energy comes from nuclear fusion in the star's core. It is fusin Hydrogen atoms together. It will eventually run out one day. All of the stars will run out of fuel someday.

What happens is that tons of hydrogen gets compressed by gravity and it starts to get extremely hot. When gas gets hot, it starts to move faster (and shine). Then, when 2 hydrogen atoms smash together, nuclear fusion happens which triggers this to happen again (from the energy of the 1st reaction) and this is how a star is born.

Answer 6

Stars are self sufficient.
The energy is hydrogen gas. The sun consumes it, making denser elements such as helium.

When it burns it all, the star will die. Stars live and die at different rates and internal gravity can create one. So, unless we have an osscilating universe, there should never be a case of absolutely no stars at any moment in time.

if there was, you wouldn't be around to see it.

Answer 7

The energy coming from the sun comes from the sun itself. The sun is basically a giant ball of hydrogen. That hydrogen is undergoing nuclear fusion which turns the hydrogen into helium and releases energy. The grand equation of E=MC^2 is at work here. When the hydrogen atoms are converted into helium, there is mass lost. That lost mass became energy.

Answer 8

The sunlight burns approximately 4 hundred million lots of hydrogen in line with 2nd and converts them into helium. That quantity looks too great however the sunlight weighs over 333,000 Earth's and has burnt purely a pair of hundred Earths on condition that its start by using nuclear fusion. this is going to save doing that for the subsequent 5 billion years at the same time as switching to the fusion of heavier components to produce "that" capacity. sparkling skies!

Answer 9

Gravity compresses hydrogen together, which heats it up and eventually causes it to undergo a type of nuclear reaction called fusion, that causes the hydrogen to bound together to form heavier elements like helium and iron. Eventually a star runs out of hydrogen and burns out. The really big ones explode, or collapse into black holes. The explosion of stars sends out raw material like silica and iron which we think helps form new planets, and of course, we thinks that this process helps form life forms such as people, since you are made of heavy elements.

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Stars are born in nebulae. Huge clouds of dust and gas collapse under gravitational forces, forming protostars. These young stars undergo further collapse, forming main sequence stars.

Stars expand as they grow old. As the core runs out of hydrogen and then helium, the core contacts and the outer layers expand, cool, and become less bright. This is a red giant or a red super giant (depending on the initial mass of the star). It will eventually collapse and explode. Its fate is determined by the original mass of the star; it will become either a black dwarf, neutron star, or black hole.