In what theory, evidences do you believe that the sun burn of Hydrogen?

Question

if i said that the sun does not burn of hydrogen? then what evidence/ theoretically do you agree that the sun burns by hydrogen?. what if i said that the sun outer is burning of molten rock, a special type of rock.

Answer 1

You claim that this is not a fight, but you continue to refute all the answers that are given.  The evidence is there, for those who have the knowledge to understand the evidence.  If you are NOT a person who has the knowledge to understand the evidence, perhaps you would do well to educate yourself in the basic facts under investigation before making wildly unscientific claims with no basis in fact.

Answer 2

Fusion of hydrogen is the only reaction we know that can provide the energy produced (which we can see and measure) over timescales consistent with the age of the oldest rocks on Earth.

Any chemical reaction (imagine the Sun made of coal for instance), would consume the Sun in a mere 200,000 years or so.

The last twenty years we have also found direct evidence in the form of neutrinos, particles that are produced in those fusion reactions and that escape the Sun more or less unharmed, and are detected on Earth.  

Answer 3

Until 1925 our top scientists believed something very similar to what you suggest. It was thought that the sun, and therefore the stars were composed of the same elements, in the same proportions as the earth. They were just superheated. It was thought that if the earth were (by some magic) as hot as the sun it would shine too. The reason for this is because the spectra of the sun seems to show that so, it is NOT by spectra alone that we know the suns makeup. Didn't you hear a word I said Stardust? Shame on you teacher!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cecilia_Pay...

In '25 a young graduate student named Cecilia Payne proved that the "apparent" chemical make up of the sun was not due to different elements but different degrees of ionization of hydrogen atoms.

The implication of her discovery is that, if the sun is predominately hydrogen, so are all all the other stars and the entire observable universe.

This discovery paved the way for much of our current knowledge from the big bang to the birth of stars and all their possible deaths from white dwarfs to black holes. And also to our knowledge that fusion takes place in the sun and...the existance of neutrinos. We could not have learned these things until we knew what chemicals we were studying and things just wouldn't work the way they do if it wasn't mostly hydrogen.

To think that we know about hydrogen because of neutrios is putting the proverbial cart before the horse!

Answer 4

There are several pieces of evidence.

First the Hydrogen "burning" in the sun is really nuclear fusion - NOT chemical burning. Nuclear reactions lead to the creation of neutrinos - which we can and do detect. You cannot account for the neutrino flux with molten rocks.

Second spectroscopy of the surface shows that it is gaseous.

The spectrum of a molten rock surface would be quite different

Third - we can also tell spectroscopically what the temperature of the sun is - how do you get rocks to be molten at ~6000K without vaporizing (its not like they are under pressure.)

ADDED: what do solar cells have to do with it?

You need to take a course or read a book on basic astronomy to understand how simply analysing light and understanding the physics behind light and its interaction with matter allows us to understand a lot about very distant objects.

MORE ADDED: of course asteroids hit the sun - but the mass of an asteroid is miniscule compared to the mass of the sun, and it wouldn't stay molten long - it would simply vaporize and the atoms would be distributed into the sun's atmosphere.

Answer 5

Hans Bethe described how nuclear fusion powers the sun in the early 20th century. While we can't observe the core directly, supporting evidence includes the agreement of theory with observation regarding the mass, composition, and energy output of the sun. Nuclear fusion also explains the various types and sizes of stars that we can observe - red dwarfs, white dwarfs, normal dwarfs, red giants, Wolf-Rayet stars, etc. The closest thing we have to direct evidence is the neutrino flux coming from the sun. If you intend to propose an alternative model, you'll need to show  numerically how you explain the energy balance of the sun and other stars, as well as the stellar evolution process.

Didn't think so.

Answer 6

The arsenals of the US, Russia, China, Great Britain, France, India, Pakistan and Israel all possess weapons that can generate energy just like the sun, only thankfully smaller.  They are called Hydrogen bombs for a reason.  A spectroscope will demonstrate easily that the sun is made primarily of hydrogen, helium and a few trace elements.  There is no rock, just ionized gasses.   But I suspect I'm wasting my time presenting you with  facts.  You have dusted off an antique theory of Lord Kelvin and made it your own.  You are welcome to keep it.  No one else wants it.  

Answer 7

r****d alert!

The Sun is made of incandescent gases!

And if it were rock(which is impossible) how would you prove that?

HAHAHAHAHA!

Answer 8

Because we can actually "see" the hydrogen by looking at the electro-magnetic energy released during the process. This results in a unique signature that only hydrogen can emit.

Answer 9

When we say that the Sun "burns" H, it is a figure of speech. The process that keeps the Sun going is nuclear fusion via the proton-proton chain. Burning is a chemical process that would require oxygen and a fuel. Anything less that fusion, such as "burning" and the Sun would have burnt out long ago.

But how do we know this you ask? The release of neutrinos are one clue to this process. The other byproduct of H fusing to He is gamma ray photons.

Also consider the Sun's low density. This would obviate any possibility of it being composed of rock. (1410 kg/m^3 would indicate that it is composed of the lightest atoms). So low density, high temperatures, pressure would indicate that Hydrogen is fusing into helium at the core in the Sun.

I realize this is very brief, but I don't want to bore you with crazy numbers and equations.

Edit:

Sorry, I thought you were asking a legitimate question, but you seem to scoff at the evidence presented.

Edit 2:

Ok, I see what you are saying. I will add this. If it were anything less than fusion of H, the math would not work.

For example, we know from the mass and composition of the Sun that there are nearly 10^57 atoms.

Its luminosity is about 3.9x10^26 joules per second.  Chemical reaction releases about 10^-19 joule per atom.

3.9x10^26/10^-19 = 3.9x10^45 atoms per second

Now take the number of atoms in the Sun and divide it by the above number:

10^57 / 3.9x10^45 = 3x10^11 seconds

The above number would be about 10,000 years. Trust me, the Sun has been here longer than that, and will be here for quite a bit longer.

I hope that helps.