I have a question about the sun?

Question

why does the sun emit so much energy

Answer 1

The center of the sun is under such extreme pressure and temperature that hydrogen atoms fuse into helium giving up considerable excess energy with nil change in weight.  All the energy of fusion must leave the center of the sun and circulate to its surface (taking perhaps a century).  From there it radiates outward in all directions and constantly heats the light side of the earth.  The sunlight takes about eight minutes to travel from the sun to earth and earth receives only a tiny fraction of the sun's output.

Answer 2

remember the atmoic bomb? comparing the level of fusion between our atomic bomb and the suns energy would be like comparing the voltage a AA produces compared to all the electricity running through the world at any given moment...

essientially a star is just a controlled nuclear explosion on an unfathomably massive scale.

Answer 3

Because hydrogen is being fused to helium, which release nuclear energy

Answer 4

Because, in its core, it conducts nuclear fusion, i.e. combines two atoms of Hydrogen to create on atom of Helium. During this process, the energy that comes out of the Sun in the form of photons is the Solar Energy as we know it. If the sun does not do it, it will simply die out and there will be no one to support life on Earth. In a way, it is the financer of the earthlings!

Answer 5

It emits so much energy because of all the gases it's made up of. All those gases are constantly running. And for something to be a gas, it has to be hot enough to become a gas. And gas has emmense energy. And even though a portion of the sun is liguid rock (or molten rock), it is always hot, which keeps the gases it has hot. Which in turn produces the energy that the sun emits. I hope this makes since? It does to me. And I'm not really that smart. Well, Hope this helps.

Answer 6

The sun is essentially a big fusion reactor.  It combines hydrogen atoms to form helium atoms - doing this at a huge rate.  

As long as there's hydrogen atoms to "burn" into helium, the sun will shine.  When it begins to run out of fuel (in about 5 billion years, according to estimates) the sun will expand to a red, cool giant - it's atmosphere will extend past the orbit of Earth, and we'll slowly spiral down and be destroyed, as we're crushed into the core of the former sun.

Answer 7

It doesn't, it releases a small amount of energy compared to other stars.

Answer 8

Because its hot!

You probably actually emit about 400 Watts yourself - but you are cool enough to have most of that energy emitted in the infrared. The amount of energy emitted depends on size and temperature. The sun is big (radius ~700,000km) and hot (~5800K or 10,000degF), so it emits a lot of energy every second (~4 x 10^26W!).

In fact the sun is average.

White dwarfs are hotter but much smaller so don;t put out as much energy per second. Red giants are cooler but much bigger so put out more energy...

Youve already had answers that describe where the energy comes from...

Answer 9

Due to gravitational collapse the interior of the sun became very hot.  Millions of degrees.  This allowed hydrogen atoms to fuse together in very large numbers to form helium.  This process releases a great deal of energy which then slowly escapes to the surface and is radiated into space.  The heat from the fusion process also temporarily halts the gravitational collapse.  All stars are a battleground between the inward pushing force of gravity and the outward pushing heat from the nuclear reactions at the core.

Answer 10

The sun countainsd 98% of the matter in our solar system. So it has all of that hydrogen that it is made up of. That fuels the reaction at the center of the sun. This reaction is due to the tremendous depth of the center of the sun that creats tremendous preasure. This preasure is enough to make two hydroen atoms to be put togather and make heleuim and a tremendous amount of heat light and radiation. If you are still confused than you can go to www.nasa.gov .

Answer 11

Because it's driven by fusion, and fusion is a very efficient way of generating energy.