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The sun is made up mostly of hydrogen and helium atoms in a plasma state. The sun generates energy from a process called nuclear fusion. During nuclear fusion, the high pressure and temperature in the sun's core cause nuclei to separate from their electrons.
The sun is made up mostly of hydrogen and helium atoms in a plasma state. The sun generates energy from a process called nuclear fusion. During nuclear fusion, the high pressure and temperature in the sun's core cause nuclei to separa...
The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is a nearly perfect sphere of hot plasma,[15][16] with internal convective motion that generates a magnetic field via a dynamo process.[17] It is by far the most important source of energy for life on Earth. Its diameter is about 1.39 million kilometers (864,000 miles), or 109 times that of Earth, and its mass is about 330,000 times that of Earth. It accounts for about 99.86% of the total mass of the Solar System.[18] Roughly three quarters of the Sun's mass consists of hydrogen (~73%); the rest is mostly helium (~25%), with much smaller quantities of heavier elements, including oxygen, carbon, neon, and iron.[19] The Sun is a G-type main-sequence star (G2V) based on its spectral class. As such, it is informally and not completely accurately referred to as a yellow dwarf (its light is closer to white than yellow). It formed approximately 4.6 billion[a][11][20] years ago from the gravitational collapse of matter within a region of a large molecular cloud. Most of this matter gathered in the center, whereas the rest flattened into an orbiting disk that became the Solar System. The central mass became so hot and dense that it eventually initiated nuclear fusion in its core. It is thought that almost all stars form by this process.
Nuclear fusion deep in the core of the Sun releases energy in the form of radiation and the kinetic energy of particles. Only one type of radiation from fusion can pass through the bulk of the Sun directly to space. ... It is very hot, so it radiates electromagnetic radiation in the spectrum of a “black body”.