Mysteries of the Sun

[MarsM4N]

What still amazes me is that the sun keeps burning for millions of years without running out of "fuel".

Guess there must me immense pressure up there keeping the ball boiling, right?

 

[Shrek]

Before E = m c^2, people wondered what could power the Sun

• Chemical power was good for thousands of years
• Gravitational energy for millions of years

but the geological record pointed to the Earth being billions of years old.

Only nuclear energy works over scales of billions of years.

 

[AMF]

The ozone issue and global warming are separate issues



While long lived, they do not last that long when in the atmosphere.



Do you have a reference for butane causing cancer?



The ozone issue and global warming are separate issues

its in the msds material safty data sheet my friend works for ac company had to have his nuts cut off its a real thing mypoint being no matter what u do u make things just as bad somewhere else .... do away with cars computers homes etc live in caves and bonk mrs over head with club days are only way earth will be preserved

 

[Shrek]

BUTANE | Occupational Safety and Health Administration (osha.gov)

"Carcinogenic classifications: Not listed"

 

[AMF]

refrigerent as in ac for cars and home ac units look that up r11 r22 and yes its mostly butane has other additves

 

[the54thvoid]

because theres nothing but research that isa being done why worry if u cant fix it.. all u can do is research

I hate to extend this mild off topic discussion but the research that was done identified what was thinning the ozone layer, therefore something was done about it. The global mandate to reduce CFC's has helped to reduce the levels. Unfortunately, there are other gases being used that also damage it. And China (am I surprised?) was still a major source (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1193-4).


As for Antartica warming, nothing to do with CFC's but another couple of gases with scientifically verifiable properties (CO2, CH4). Funny, how people accept a man-made refrigerant and aerosol gas can affect the planet yet dismiss another gas for causing global warming when said gas is a known insulator of heat.

What still amazes me is that the sun keeps burning for millions of years without running out of "fuel".

Guess there must me immense pressure up there keeping the ball boiling, right?

As for this: technically, the Sun is using up its fuel, just at a pace we find difficult to understand with our tiny human minds. And it's not the pressure keeping it boiling, it's the gravity trying to collapse it which is keeping the core compressed and fusing atoms to create energy. Once the fuel begins to run lower, the fight against gravity will be lost and the core will shrink, letting the outer atmosphere of the sun expand (red giant). Then, once that atmosphere is spent, we'll have a little white dwarf. And this is all super-super simplified.

 

[Shrek]

Sun is about halfway through its fuel (just in case that has not already been mentioned).

 

[Wirko]

Before E = m c^2, people wondered what could power the Sun

• Chemical power was good for thousands of years
• Gravitational energy for millions of years

but the geological record pointed to the Earth being older than that.

Only nuclear energy works over scales of billions of years.

It powers the Earth too, a little bit. A significant part of geothermal energy comes from radioactive decay (just decay, no nuclear reactions).

 

[Shrek]

I'd go so far as to say quite a bit

Things get hotter as one goes down (25–30 °C/km) so we could generate a lot of power if we drilled down just a few kilometers.

But this is off topic, so I'll stop.

 

[pavle]

A very good light it is indeed.

 

[Space Lynx]

Thank you for the answers everyone, and in light of @the54thvoid we can go back to being more on-topic now. Much appreciated everyone, I will leave this thread for sun only stuff moving forward. My questions have been answered.

 

[lexluthermiester]

I feel like this is important as **** and NASA and other agencies should be looking at how to help it heal faster... why am I the only one alarmed by this?

It will regenerate naturally. It already has significantly in the last decade since bans on OZone depleting compounds began.

 

[Wirko]

Thank you for the answers everyone, and in light of @the54thvoid we can go back to being more on-topic now. Much appreciated everyone, I will leave this thread for sun only stuff moving forward. My questions have been answered.

I don't think this is a thread where we should never stray away from the topic. Earth is no more than 150 Tm away from Sun, after all, and they say there's some interaction between them.

 

[Space Lynx]

Does anyone know if the sun can just pitter out without getting bigger? Or does the physics of how a sun works (aka in order for a sun to be a sun of our sun's size just cancel this possibility out?)

I am not wording this right... I guess is it possible for the 'innards' of our particular sun, to simply be miscalculated, and it simply fizzles out randomly one day even before its expected to age wise? Like a solar flare so big it messed up the spin of the other reactions taking place by giving the sun a jolt or slight spin it didn't have before, or simply a chemical imbalance occurs? Or is that chemical/atom balance is impossible to not be correct, otherwise it would be 'sperhical' in shape?

I guess what I am trying to ask, physics, the way it works, tends to create a very strong stable foundation inherently in just the nature of its existence, or is it more unstable than I think?

 

[qubit]

Scientists are as near to 100% sure it will become a red giant as is possible. Alas, it's still 5 billion years away, so none of us around today will get to see it. You really wouldn't want to though as it will mean the end of life on earth.

Would be funny if TPU were still around though.

 

[Space Lynx]

Scientists are as near to 100% sure it will become a red giant as is possible. Alas, it's still 5 billion years away, so none of us around today will get to see it. You really wouldn't want to though as it will mean the end of life on earth.

That's what I figured, I was just curious.

 

[xtreemchaos]

Does anyone know if the sun can just pitter out without getting bigger?

the truth is nobody knows. theirs a incredible amount of guess work that gos on about Sol, my imaging work brings me close to those who study sol thay use a few of my images in their work and i can never get a straight reply about anything and when i do within a year its changed. "scientists lovely with a bit of mint sauce" .

 

[Shrek]

Scientists are as near to 100% sure it will become a red giant as is possible.

Indeed, two red giant swellings before leaving a carbon white dwarf.

 

[qubit]

Indeed, two red giant swellings before leaving a carbon white dwarf.

I'd love to know how long it would take for that white dwarf remnant, presumably solid, to be cool enough to touch with a bare hand. I'll bet it's in the billions of years. There really is a stupendously huge amount of energy in the sun - and it's not even a large star. Mind boggles.

Of course there will be lots of other issues such as the radiation coming off it, possibly high gravity and likely other factors I haven't thought of preventing a future* human from actually doing this.

*If Putin hasn't wiped us all out with nukes in the next couple of weeks, of course.

 

[Shrek]

Second (larger) red giant may vaporize the Earth.

 

[lexluthermiester]

Does anyone know if the sun can just pitter out without getting bigger? Or does the physics of how a sun works (aka in order for a sun to be a sun of our sun's size just cancel this possibility out?)

The current model of stellar lifespan strongly suggests against it. However it is all just theory as of yet. However, it's a very strong theory as the knowledge we have thus far is fairly solid. The only question is how big it will actually get and where the orbiting planets will be located in their orbits when it expands. Not everyone agrees that the Sun will engulf the Earth or even get large enough to engulf Venus.

Scientists are as near to 100% sure it will become a red giant as is possible.

Correction, the scientific community 100% agrees that the Sun will expand to a very large size. How large and to what extent is still being debated. The problem is that Sun's mass is not constant. It is loosing mass on a moment by moment basis. With every CME event the Sun expels a small, but not insignificant, amount of mass out into space that will not return. Then there is the question of the enormous amount of radiation, which is a form of matter that has mass, being emitted on a moment by moment basis.

So the question of whether the Sun will expand when it's fusion fuel supply is consumed is answered. But how big it will get will depend on the total mass of the Sun when it does run out of fuel.

EDIT: Corrections for proper terms.

 

[Shrek]

It is the core that runs out of hydrogen when it is full helium; it then contracts and the Sun become shell burning (a hydrogen shell around the helium core burns) and it will actually die long before all the hydrogen is consumed. The helium core eventually lights up in a helium flash and for a bit it will be burning both helium and hydrogen. Larger stars don't have the helium flash.

Fascinating stuff and worth getting a book on.

The mechanism is counter intuitive since as the Sun runs out of fuel the core is compressed harder and the nuclear reactions run faster; we are used to things running slower as they run out of fuel.

 

[lexluthermiester]

It is the core that runs out of hydrogen when it is full helium; it then contracts and the Sun become shell burning (a hydrogen shell around the helium core burns) and it will actually die long before all the hydrogen is consumed. The helium core eventually lights up in a helium flash and for a bit it will be burning both helium and hydrogen. Larger stars don't have the helium flash.

Fascinating stuff and worth getting a book on.

The mechanism is counter intuitive since as the Sun runs out of fuel the core is compressed harder and the nuclear reactions run faster; we are used to things running slower as they run out of fuel.

It's not just the core. Convection is a thing and the core is always receiving a fresh supply of hydrogen. It's when the inner and outer core of a star run thin that the process of helium begins. Helium fusion is already taking place in the core of the Sun, but currently only in the depths of the inner core near the layers of heavy metals.

 

[Shrek]

Good point, but the Sun's convective zone does not reach the core, there is a radiative zone between; but you are right, it is different for smaller Suns.

I believe that there is no significant Helium burning at the moment, but please correct me if I am wrong.

The Helium will light up explosively for the Sun (the flash), but not explosively for larger stars.

This is mainly from memory, but I hope I still recall correctly.

 

[lexluthermiester]

Good point, but the Sun's convective zone does not reach the core, there is a radiative zone between

While true in theory, thermal and fluid physics demand some exchange of matter takes place in all layers, so the refreshing of fuel supply is a thing that must be taking place.