what source of energy keeps the sun shining?

Answer 1

Nuclear Fusion.
Dang, she's quick. When Hydrogen gas is put under enough pressure (like in the inside of a star) it merges together at the atomic level becoming Helium and lots of energy. The sun is just a giant unshielded nuclear furnace... lucky for us its 93,000,000 miles away.

Answer 2

Nuclear fusion.
At the sun's core, gravitational pressure is so great that the Hydrogen atoms are moving at such a high rate (due to the temperature being over 10^7 degrees kelvin) that the protons slam into each other... and stick. There is about a 5 step process that occurs in which 6 Hydrogen atoms (with 1 proton, 1 electron and 0 neutrons, respectively) eventually turn into a Helium atom (2 protons, 2 neutrons, 2 electrons), 2 Hydrogen atoms (as described before), and energy in the form of photons (light) and neutrinos* (a result of two of the protons turning into neutrons).

The result of the nuclear fusion (the helium and the 2 hydrogen) has less mass than the 6 Hydrogen atoms before, and it is this difference in mass that, as determined by E=mc^2 (energy released is equal to the amount of mass lost times the square of the speed of light), determines the amount of energy released from the sun due to that one nuclear reaction. Don't forget that this reaction occurs constantly and at an extremely rapid rate.

*: an interesting note: it can take around a million years for the photons to travel from the core to the photosphere of the sun, due to the fact that there is such a dense population of hydrogen atoms that will constantly bounce the photon around. The neutrinos, however, do not interact with matter, and can travel from the core to the photosphere at the speed of light. We can detect these neutrinos from the sun on Earth, so if the sun spontaneously stopped having nuclear reactions in its core, we would still have around a million years before photons stopped shining out from it (plus eight minutes for the light to reach Earth).

Answer 3

NUCLEAR FUSION

On most all stars the mass of gas within the bubble that is the star itself presses down onto the core (central point) with so much pressure that intense heat is created and nuclear fusion results. The first element to be fused is Hydrogen gas.
It is fused into the next element on the atomic chart which is Helium - the one proton and one electron of a hydrogen atom are squeezed together with another atom of hydrogen forming helium which has two atoms and two electrons. This nuclear fusion generates intense heat and emits energy just like a nuclear expolsion or the energy coming out of a nucler reactor (very small example). Part of the energy is emitted in the visable light range. More is emitted in the UV , X Ray, and Gamma Ray spectrum. We are talking about huge, intense amounts of radiation here, and gigantic balls of gases which make up the individual stars.

Answer 4

As others have said, it's nuclear fusion. The immense pressure in the core of a star overcomes the nuclear forces holding hydrogen atoms together, and forces them to merge together creating Helium. In this reaction, energy is lost. For each atom of helium created, one photon of light is generated.

Answer 5

Much like the Earth generates oxygen, the Sun's inner mass produces a ever burning gas to it's upper atmosphere...


For the longest time up until a few years ago much physics of what was thought about the design of our Sun was (Speculative working Physics ) How I figured this out was a clue given away by the Sun it'self proving my theory.

Answer 6

Nuclear Fusion.

Answer 7

um..when the atoms bounce and keep bouncing off the "walls" and off of eachother..they produce heat and energgy which keeps it shining..

Answer 8

nuclear fusion