How
and Why Does the Sunshine?
Summary
– The
Sun shines every day and has been doing that for several billion years. When
you wonder why it shines and how it does that, the answers are here. Read on:
The
Sun has been powering life on Earth for several billion years now. It's the
main – and only source – of power to all ecosystems on Earth and that is what
makes life sustain here. Despite being several hundreds of millions of
kilometers away from the Sun, Earth receives quite a considerable amount of
energy.
While
all of this is going on for several billion years, people generally don't care
much about it because it's just there, right?
How
does the sun shine anyway? Why does it shine? How is it that the Sun produces
so much energy continuously and how is it that we receive so much energy from
the Sun?
Let's
take a look.
The
Sun produces energy through what is popularly called nuclear fusion. Hydrogen
atoms fuse at a very high temperature and pressure and form helium atoms. And
this reaction produces a lot of energy. Because the temperature and pressure
are high, these helium atoms undergo further fusion – and the process goes on
till atoms of heavier types like carbon are produced.
All
of this happens at the core of the Sun where the temperatures are in the range
of 15 million Kelvin. By the time you reach the surface of the Sun, the
temperature is just about 6000 K. (5700+ degrees Celsius).
The
energy produced at the core of the Sun is in the form of heat and light. Light,
in the form of photons, are said to take several hundred thousand years to take
to reach the sun's surface. Can you imagine that? It is estimated that the
energy produced as photons would take about 200,000 years to reach the surface
of the sun. It's not because of the size of the sun as such but it's because of
all the heat, pressure and radiation within the sun's plasma content.
Once
the photos have reached the surface, they travel real fast and reach Earth
within 8 minutes.
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