how the sun works

[Kaytie11]

so like you have this sun and my teacher is like do a science report and im in 5th grade and he is mr. sould if u no him

 

so i am doing my report on how the sun works.. wich i thought it wud be super easy but it is like so so so so hard

 

 

this is wut i have

 

 

ok so like u hav big bang and then everything is hydrogen.. and it has a super small mass. then gravitrons that make up all matter in the hydrogen make the hydrogen come together in big gass clouds called nebulas

 

then the nebulas come together more and pressure goes up... and i gess as pressure goes up heat does to?

 

i dont understand this cuz wen we lerned about spheres they said the thermosphere is relly hot cuz low pressure so the atoms hav lots of room to zoom around... now they say high pressure makes stuff hot?

 

anyways so heat and pressure go up and i gess its soooooo hot that hydrogen combines with like another hydrogen and a positrino and nutrino is lost? then they make a helium atom.

 

so i gess if u take the mass of 2 hydrogen.. and minus that from the mass of one helium and the number left over is like light and heat??

 

so my question on this is... what exactly is those positrino and nutrino?

 

some peeps say light is a wave... and some say its a like... matter.

 

if light can bend or react to gravity, it has to be matter yes? but no matter can move at the speed of light right? so in that way its pure energy? is energy a wave or matter?

 

also i read this

 

e = mc squared

 

so this is.... energy = mass x the speed of light squared.

 

i think this means anything can be turned into energy the ammount depending on its mass.

 

iv also read energy can be turned into matter... is that right?

 

 

 

also is the sun fire?

 

and is fire basicly the unstable reaction between any elements?

 

 

 

 

also are there Nuclear fusion going on in the core to?

 

and if not dose that mean the erth is cooling

 

also.. how does the sun heat matter? how does the heat travel? is heat energy? and does it warm us up just by running into us?

 

 

pls help... my daddy dont even get this

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

You're heading on the right track here. Good work.

 

Yes, as pressure goes up the heat does too. That's how diesel engines (like trucks have) work: they squish the air and gas together until they're hot enough to ignite.

 

When something is hot, that means that all of its atoms are moving around really really fast. (Cold things have atoms that move more slowly.) So the atoms in the thermosphere are moving fast enough that they push each other apart and get space in between them.

 

so i gess if u take the mass of 2 hydrogen.. and minus that from the mass of one helium and the number left over is like light and heat??

Yes. You understand this better than a lot of people I know. Two hydrogen atoms combine together to make helium. Helium weighs a little bit less than two hydrogen atoms because some of that mass was turned into energy -- you can figure out how much energy by multiplying the missing mass by the speed of light squared ([math]E = mc^2[/math]). The energy is light.

 

Yes, light is pure energy. Light acts like a wave, but it also acts like matter (or a particle). Nobody is really sure what light is; it's just something that acts like a wave sometimes and acts like a particle other times.

 

There isn't nuclear fusion in the Earth's core. The Earth's core stays hot because gravity squishes the Earth together so much that the core's pressure goes up and it gets hot.

 

Heat from the Sun travels as light. That's why when you stand out in the Sun you feel hotter. The light is energy, remember, and the energy can be changed from light energy to heat energy.

 

Hope that helps some!

[timo]

Ok, first of all: Please do not use abbreviations like "u" for "you", "wut" for "what" and so on. Some people (e.g. me - but at least I am used to that slang from computer games) in this forum are not native English speakers. And even those that are might not always understand internet slang. Using capitalization of nouns and consistent use of punctuation greatly helps understanding a post.

 

That said, now for your question:

- I think you possibly cover a wider topic than your teacher wants you to. Of course, I do not really know what your teacher expects, but starting a report on "how the sun works" with Big Bang and formation of the first stars seems a bit too far-fetched to me. Perhaps just take the current state of the sun as granted and explain how it produces light and heat.

- The process you are probably looking for is nuclear fusion. As you already found out yourself, it is the fusion of hydrogen nuclei into helium nuclei and some other stuff that I don't know without looking it up. Positrons and neutrinos seems to make sense. There are probably some photons (particles of light) involved, too - after all, shining light on earth is a primary function of the sun.

 

 

Some specific comments on what you wrote:

Ok, so like you have big bang and then everything is hydrogen. And it has a super small mass. Then gravitons that make up all matter in the hydrogen make the hydrogen come together in big gas clouds called nebulas.

It's basically not gravitons but simply gravity that makes the hydrogen clump together. Gravity, in case you do not know, is the effect that objects with mass are attracted towards each other. Gravitons are supposed to be related to gravity but you can safely forget about them.

 

So my question on this is... what exactly is those positrino and nutrino?

Elementary particles, their correct names being "positron" and "neutrino".

 

 

Some peeps say light is a wave... and some say its a like... matter.

 

If light can bend or react to gravity, it has to be matter yes? but no matter can move at the speed of light right? so in that way its pure energy? is energy a wave or matter?

- Light is definitely not matter. What you probably meant is wave vs. particle, not wave vs. matter. It is both, wave and particle. The layman explanation is that light can act like a wave or like a particle, depending on how you look at it.

- Waves can react to gravity, no problem with that.

- No object with non-zero mass can move at the speed of light. That has -in principle- nothing to do with whether the object is matter or not.

- Energy is a property of something. A volume is neither a house nor a car (see below).

 

Also I read this: E = mc²

 

So this is.... energy = mass x the speed of light squared.

 

I think this means anything can be turned into energy the amount depending on its mass.

No. Energy is no thing, it is a property of things. Those lifeforms "made up on pure energy" from Star Trek are misleading because ... well, energy is not a thing but a property of things. What the equation means is that mass contributes to the energy or alternatively that mass is a form of energy. Note: Mass also is no thing but a property of things.

What you can do is converting something with mass into something with less mass and some other energy (like kinetic energy, the energy related to the motion of things). That also is what happens in the sun.

 

I have also read energy can be turned into matter... is that right?

Not really. You can turn non-matter with some energy into matter with the same energy. But energy is just a property of matter and non-matter, just as volume is a property of houses and cars (and you might possibly turn a car into a house but not volume into a house).

 

Also.. how does the sun heat matter? how does the heat travel? is heat energy? and does it warm us up just by running into us?

The energy transferred from the sun to earth is mostly electromagnetic radiation, I think. In this case, you can think of electromagnetic radiation simply as light rays or light particles travelling from the sun to earth. And yes, light rays hitting an object tend to warm it up.

[Kaytie11]

well... i kinda want to impress him so i want to make my report like relly smart lol

 

and yes sorry ill try to type better.. but i am on a cell lol

 

and one question...

 

 

so you hav....

 

 

 

solid... liquid.... gas... light?

 

 

so u hav a drop of water... it heats and turns to gass... then it heats and turns to light and shoots of to jupiter? lol

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

It doesn't turn into light, really. When you heat it you put energy into it. Some of that energy turns into light.

 

Think of a light bulb. You put energy (electricity) into a light bulb and some of that energy turns into light. However, if you've ever touched a light bulb, you know they're really hot (don't touch one to try it, please). That's because some of that energy is turned into heat, too: energy can be in many different forms. Heat and light are two of them.

[timo]

Two hydrogen atoms combine together to make helium. Helium weighs a little bit less than two hydrogen atoms because some of that mass was turned into energy ...

Nope. Two hydrogen nuclei (you don't really have atoms in the sun I think, the stuff is most likely ionized) have a much lower mass than one helium nucleus - just look it up. Not knowing the reaction myself my guess is that you take four hydrogen nuclei (=protons) where two of them are converted into neutrons, which then is also where the positrons and neutrinos mentioned by Kaytie come in.

 

Yes, light is pure energy.

You hereby volunteered to reply to the next three "I have a theory that everything is made of pure energy"-threads .

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

Nope. Two hydrogen nuclei (you don't really have atoms in the sun I think, the stuff is most likely ionized) have a much lower mass than one helium nucleus - just look it up. Not knowing the reaction myself my guess is that you take four hydrogen nuclei (=protons) where two of them are converted into neutrons, which then is also where the positrons and neutrinos mentioned by Kaytie come in.

Oh, right, I should have thought about that a bit before writing. So it's four hydrogen to one helium.

 

You hereby volunteered to reply to the next three "I have a theory that everything is made of pure energy"-threads .

I'm trying to oversimplify to make this all easier to understand -- 5th grade in the US is about age 11.

[timo]

I'm trying to oversimplify to make this all easier to understand -- 5th grade in the US is about age 11.

I don't think this very oversimplification is helpful. Effectively, understanding that energy is a property of an object, not an object itself should not be much more complicated than understanding that a red car is not "pure color" but a car with a certain color. I'm not a pedagogue but I think that sometimes oversimplifying things to the point that they are wrong can often make things harder to understand rather than easier.

[ydoaPs]

The sun is a mass of incandescent gas-a gigantic nuclear furnace that burns hydrogen into helium at temperatures of millions of degrees. The sun is hot; the sun is not a place where we could live, but down on Earth, there'd be no life without the light it gives.

[swansont]

The sun is a mass of incandescent gas-a gigantic nuclear furnace that burns hydrogen into helium at temperatures of millions of degrees. The sun is hot; the sun is not a place where we could live, but down on Earth, there'd be no life without the light it gives.

 

Please cite your sources when using someone else's words.

 

Why Does The Sun Shine? (The Sun is a Mass of Incandescent Gas), Lou Singer and Hy Zaret, 1959

 

http://kids.niehs.nih.gov/lyrics/whysunshine.htm

[ydoaPs]

Please cite your sources when using someone else's words.

 

Why Does The Sun Shine? (The Sun is a Mass of Incandescent Gas), Lou Singer and Hy Zaret, 1959

 

http://kids.niehs.nih.gov/lyrics/whysunshine.htm

 

Sorry, I thought it was popular enough(like "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star") to not need citing. After all, it was even on

. I thought it was as well known as Istanbul or