What "fuel" does the sun consume?

Question

What "fuel" does the sun consume?

Answer 1

Hydrogen is fused by fisson into helium

Answer 2

Its amazing how quickly you can find these simple answers on wikipedia.

Without even looking it up, I know that the sun's primary fuel is hydrogen (I paid attention in school).

Answer 3

The sun gets its energy/fuel from nuclear fission reactions.

Answer 4

It consumes cheating science students.

Answer 5

Hydrogen

Answer 6

Mostly hydrogen, at least at this point in time. Four hydrogen nuclei are fused together to form helium, and in the process releasing energy.

However hydrogen in not the only fuel. Lithium fuses easier than hydrogen and early in their lifetimes stars start the nuclear process with lithium fusion. Deuterium fuses even easier than lithium.

Stars do exist like this and are called brown dwarf stars, they do not emit much light. If Jupiter were about ten times larger it too would undergo lithium-deuterium fusion and become a small star.

And also, later in their lifetime, when stars get older, the fuel then becomes the helium, carbon, oxygen and heavier elements that were creatred earlier, heavier elements fusing all the way up to making iron. The fusion of heavier elements releases much more energy and that greater energy is the reason why stars get bigger as they age. Someday the sun will be bigger than the orbit of mars because of this.

So you get fusion of these other elements that have already been created to make even heavier elements. And every time you get fusion you also get energy released.

So it is largely hydrogen, and is always mostly hydrogen, but it is also the fusion of all the other elements in the sun that provides all the fuel.

Answer 7

Hydrogen, which is undergoing nuclear fusion, resulting in heavier elements being formed.