Guest guest Posted October 8, 2000 Report Share Posted October 8, 2000 Question: How much hydrogen does the Sun fuse every second? Every second, the Sun fuses about 700 million tons of hydrogen into helium. In the process, about five million tons of mass are converted directly into energy, which slowly makes its way out to the surface where it is radiated into space. The conversion takes place near the innermost core of the Sun where the temperature is almost 16 million degrees Celsius (28.8 million degrees F). There, the same reaction that powers hydrogen bombs keeps the Sun inflated, preventing it from collapsing. Surya has been burning hydrogen for more than four billion years, and it will keep doing so for several more billions of years. As a " main sequence " star its output is steady and predictable, which is good for life on its third planet. The anatomy of the Sun: http://fusedweb.pppl.gov/CPEP/Chart_Pages/5.Plasmas/SunLayers.html Read about what's actually happening in the core: http://observe.ivv.nasa.gov/nasa/exhibits/stars/star_6.html Another Cool Fact about the Sun's energy production: http://features.LearningKingdom.com/fact/archive/1999/05/04.html ---- Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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