Astronomy › Section K · The Sun › Topic K.5
Sources of sunshine and mass-energy
The Sun has poured out energy at a ferocious rate for about 4.6 billion years. Burning and shrinking both fall far short of explaining that, and the true answer, fusing hydrogen into helium and turning a little mass into energy, took the physics of the twentieth century to find.
In this topic
- The puzzle of sunshine
- Worked example: a Sun made of coal
- Gravity: a better but still too short answer
- Mass is a form of energy
- Worked example: how much mass does the Sun lose each second?
- The particles involved
- Binding energy and fusion
- Getting protons close enough
- The proton-proton chain
- Worked example: energy from hydrogen fusion
- Common mistakes to avoid
- Key takeaways
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