The core of the Sun is home to billions and billions of atoms of hydrogen, the lightest element in the universe. The immense pressure and heat pushes these atoms so close to one another that they squish together to create new, heavier atoms. This is called nuclear fusion.
What happens in the core of the Sun quizlet?
What happens in the center of the Sun? Nuclear fusion occurs – A process in which particles of an element collide and form a heavier element, such as the fusion of hydrogen into helium that occurs at the Sun’s core.
What happens inside a star’s the Sun’s core?
Its inner layers start to collapse, which squishes the core, increasing the pressure and temperature in the core of the star. While the core collapses, the outer layers of material in the star to expand outward. The star expands to larger than it has ever been – a few hundred times bigger!
What is the function of the Sun’s core?
The Inner Core of the Sun is the main engine of this star. Here, gravity and heat provide the necessary energy to drive the nuclear fusion processes that power the sun. In the core, the fusion processes called the Proton-Proton Cycle and the Carbon-Nitrogen-Oxygen Cycle take place.
What are 3 facts about the Sun’s core?
The temperature at the sun’s core is around 15 million degrees Celsius (28 million degrees Fahrenheit), which is almost 3,000 time higher than at the surface. The core is 10 times as dense as gold or lead, and the pressure is 340 billion times the atmospheric pressure on Earth’s surface.
What happens in the Sun’s core and why?
Welcome to the core
The core of the Sun is home to billions and billions of atoms of hydrogen, the lightest element in the universe. The immense pressure and heat pushes these atoms so close to one another that they squish together to create new, heavier atoms. This is called nuclear fusion.
How does energy produced in the Sun’s core?
Solar energy is created by nuclear fusion that takes place in the sun. Fusion occurs when protons of hydrogen atoms violently collide in the sun’s core and fuse to create a helium atom. This process, known as a PP (proton-proton) chain reaction, emits an enormous amount of energy.
Does the Sun have a corona?
The corona is the outer atmosphere of the Sun. It extends many thousands of kilometers (miles) above the visible “surface” of the Sun, gradually transforming into the solar wind that flows outward through our solar system. The material in the corona is an extremely hot but very tenuous plasma.
What happens when a star’s core runs out of hydrogen and why does this occur?
When the hydrogen supply in the core begins to run out, and the star is no longer generating heat by nuclear fusion, the core becomes unstable and contracts. The outer shell of the star, which is still mostly hydrogen, starts to expand. As it expands, it cools and glows red.
What triggers the birth of a star?
A star is born when atoms of light elements are squeezed under enough pressure for their nuclei to undergo fusion. … As long as the inward force of gravity and the outward force generated by the fusion reactions are equal, the star remains stable. Clouds of gas are common in our galaxy and in other galaxies like ours.
What is the core of the Sun called?
At the very center is the dense, hot core. Around the core lie two layers: a thick layer called the radiative zone and a thinner, cooler layer called the convective zone. Surrounding all of them is the sun’s surface layer, known as the photosphere.
What is the composition of the Sun’s core?
Structure. The Sun’s core is 64% helium surrounded by a shell of fusing hydrogen-35% of the core’s mass. All the other elements in the universe compose only 1% of the Sun’s core. All of the energy the Sun radiates is created in the core.
What is the pressure in the Sun’s core?
The core is made of hot, dense plasma (ions and electrons), at a pressure estimated at 265 billion bar (3.84 trillion psi or 26.5 petapascals (PPa)) at the center. Due to fusion, the composition of the solar plasma drops from 68–70% hydrogen by mass at the outer core, to 34% hydrogen at the core/Sun center.
What is in the Earth’s core?
Beneath the mantle, you’ll find the core. … The outer core is about 1,400 miles thick, and it’s made mostly of a combination (called an alloy) of iron and nickel, along with small amounts of other dense elements like gold, platinum, and uranium. These metals can, of course, be found on the surface of Earth in solid form.
Does the Sun have solid core?
The Sun does not have a solid surface or continents like Earth, nor does it have a solid core (Figure 1). However, it does have a lot of structure and can be discussed as a series of layers, not unlike an onion.
What layer of the Sun is above the core?
The inner layers are the Core, Radiative Zone and Convection Zone. The outer layers are the Photosphere, the Chromosphere, the Transition Region and the Corona.
What does the corona of the Sun do?
The corona is the outermost layer of the Sun’s atmosphere where strong magnetic fields bind plasma and prevent turbulent solar winds from escape. The Alfvén point is when solar winds exceed a critical speed and can break free of the corona and the Sun’s magnetic fields.
What happens in the Sun’s photosphere?
The photosphere is marked by bright, bubbling granules of plasma and darker, cooler sunspots, which emerge when the sun’s magnetic field breaks through the surface. Sunspots appear to move across the sun’s disk. Observing this motion led astronomers to realize that the sun rotates on its axis.
Which of the following must occur for a star’s core to reach equilibrium?
An increase in the core temperature and A decrease in the core radius. Which of the following must occur for a star’s core to reach equilibrium after an initial change in fusion rate? If the fusion rate initially increases, then the core expands. If the fusion rate initially decreases, then the core contracts.
What elements will the sun produce?
In fact, direct fusion only produces about a dozen of the elements: carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, neon, magnesium, silicon, sulfur, argon, calcium, titanium, chromium, and iron.
How does energy travel from the core of the sun to the surface?
Energy is transported by convection in the outer regions of the Sun (the outer 30 percent, or so). Energy is transported by radiative diffusion in the inner regions of the Sun (the inner 70 percent).
How does the sun keep the solar system together?
The sun’s gravity pulls the planet toward the sun, which changes the straight line of direction into a curve. This keeps the planet moving in an orbit around the sun. Because of the sun’s gravitational pull, all the planets in our solar system orbit around it.
Why corona is so hot?
About 80 years ago, scientists found that the temperature of the solar corona is actually much hotter than the surface, at a few million degrees celsius. … The high temperatures of the corona cause it to expand into space as a continuous outflow of plasma called the solar wind.
How many Earths can fit in the Sun?
If you divide the volume of the sun by the volume of the Earth, you get that roughly 1.3 million Earths can fit inside the sun.
What effects does the Sun have on Earth?
The sun has extremely important influences on our planet: It drives weather, ocean currents, seasons, and climate, and makes plant life possible through photosynthesis. Without the sun’s heat and light, life on Earth would not exist.
What do stars burn after hydrogen?
Stars on the main sequence burn by fusing hydrogen into helium. Large stars tend to have higher core temperatures than smaller stars. Therefore, large stars burn the hydrogen fuel in the core quickly, whereas, small stars burn it more slowly.
What will happen once the star has used up the hydrogen in its core?
Once a star has exhausted its supply of hydrogen in its core, leaving nothing but helium, the outward force created by fusion starts to decrease and the star can no longer maintain equilibrium. The force of gravity becomes greater than the force from internal pressure and the star begins to collapse.
What is formed when the core of a star is heated?
Once the temperature reaches 15,000,000 degrees Celsius, nuclear fusion takes place in the center, or core, of the cloud. The tremendous heat given off by the nuclear fusion process causes the gas to glow creating a protostar. … As it glows, hydrogen is converted into helium in the core by nuclear fusion.
What is the death of a star called?
As the hydrogen runs out, a star with a similar mass to our sun will expand and become a red giant. When a high-mass star has no hydrogen left to burn, it expands and becomes a red supergiant. While most stars quietly fade away, the supergiants destroy themselves in a huge explosion, called a supernova.
What is the birth life and death of a star?
stars are born in vast clouds of gas and dust. stars spend most of their lives on the main sequence fusing hydrogen gas to helium gas. stars eventually swell up to form a red giant star. stars like the Sun end their lives as planetary nebulae and white dwarfs.
What will happen if the sun dies?
After the Sun exhausts the hydrogen in its core, it will balloon into a red giant, consuming Venus and Mercury. Earth will become a scorched, lifeless rock — stripped of its atmosphere, its oceans boiled off. … While the Sun won’t become a red giant for another 5 billion years, a lot can happen in that time.
What happens every 11 years on the Sun?
About every 11 years, the Sun’s magnetic field does a flip. In other words, the north pole becomes the south pole, and vice versa. This flip is one aspect of the roughly 11-year activity cycle the Sun experiences as its magnetic field evolves slowly over time.
How hot is the Earth’s core?
The inner core is a hot, dense ball of (mostly) iron. It has a radius of about 1,220 kilometers (758 miles). Temperature in the inner core is about 5,200° Celsius (9,392° Fahrenheit). The pressure is nearly 3.6 million atmosphere (atm).
What two ways is energy transported in the Sun in order from inside out?
What two ways is energy transported in the Sun in order from inside out? visible light. Energy moves through the sun in two main ways: by radiation and by convection. As energy moves outward from the sun’s core, it first enters the radiation zone.
What will happen if Earth’s core cools down?
Those currents generate our geomagnetic field. If the Earth’s core cooled down, it wouldn’t produce any currents. The Earth would lose its magnetic field. … Since the frozen core wouldn’t heat up rocks, water, gas, and other geological material anymore, the Earth would be getting colder and colder.
What are 5 facts about the inner core?
- It’s Almost The Size of the Moon. The Earth’s inner core is surprisingly large, measuring 2,440 km (1,516 miles) across. …
- It’s Hot…Really Hot. …
- It’s Mostly Made of Iron. …
- It Spins Faster Than the Surface of the Earth. …
- It Creates a Magnetic Field.
Will the Earth core cool down?
The Earth’s core does, in fact, cool down over time, and eventually it will solidify completely. Since the Earth’s magnetic field (which protects the atmosphere and biosphere from harmful radiation) is generated by molten iron in the core, the solidification of the core might seem quite foreboding.