Craig's science topics #3: Why doesn't the Sun just explode?

[Craig234]

We see here on earth what happens when a gas like hydrogen explodes.

It goes, 'boom'. It doesn't last long.

Big mass of gas, strike match, boom. And the Sun is quite a match.

So, how in the world does the Sun explode for billions of years - at a steady rate?

Yes, the Sun is the size of a million Earths. And? We know what happens here with small gas explosions and bigger gas explosions. They all go boom.

What in the world is different about the Sun's 90% Hydrogen exploding that makes it explode at a steady rate, slowly turning to Helium, over billions of years?

This isn't a question without a known answer - but it's not known to known by the public much.

 

[MongGrel]

NM, redacted.

 

[Craig234]

And an answer to the topic:

https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/why-doesnt-the-sun-explode.462451/

 

[SMOGZINN]

We see here on earth what happens when a gas like hydrogen explodes.

The sun is not a gas explosion.

The sun is a fusion bomb the size of two million earths. It is undergoing a fusion reaction with 333,000 Earth's worth of reaction mass. Because the gravity of all that mass is enough to keep pulling it back to the center where it can keep reacting it will take it a really, really, really long time to finish reacting with all that fuel.

 

[JTsyo]

We see here on earth what happens when a gas like hydrogen explodes.

It goes, 'boom'. It doesn't last long.

Big mass of gas, strike match, boom. And the Sun is quite a match.

So, how in the world does the Sun explode for billions of years - at a steady rate?

Yes, the Sun is the size of a million Earths. And? We know what happens here with small gas explosions and bigger gas explosions. They all go boom.

What in the world is different about the Sun's 90% Hydrogen exploding that makes it explode at a steady rate, slowly turning to Helium, over billions of years?

This isn't a question without a known answer - but it's not known to known by the public much.

Why doesn't the log in the fire place burn up the instance it catches on fire instead of burning over hours? It's a self-regulating reaction. The sun is a fusion reaction that turns 564 million tons hydrogen into 559.7 million tons of helium per second. The energy released by fusion is balanced by gravity. That's why we're having trouble getting fusion to work on earth since we can't find something to substitute for gravity to make fusion sustainable.