{"id":538,"date":"2022-03-02T16:07:34","date_gmt":"2022-03-02T16:07:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ccconline.org\/astronomy\/?post_type=part&p=538"},"modified":"2022-04-29T16:17:54","modified_gmt":"2022-04-29T16:17:54","slug":"chapter-16-the-sun-a-nuclear-powerhouse","status":"publish","type":"part","link":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ccconline.org\/astronomy\/part\/chapter-16-the-sun-a-nuclear-powerhouse\/","title":{"raw":"Chapter 16 The Sun: A Nuclear Powerhouse","rendered":"Chapter 16 The Sun: A Nuclear Powerhouse"},"content":{"raw":"
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\r\n
\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"1313\"]\"A Figure\u00a016.1<\/strong>\u00a0The Sun.\u00a0It takes an incredible amount of energy for the Sun to shine, as it has and will continue to do for billions of years. (credit: modification of work by Ed Dunens)[\/caption]<\/figure>\r\n<\/div>\r\n
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Chapter Outline<\/h3>\r\n
16.1<\/span>\u00a0Sources of Sunshine: Thermal and Gravitational Energy<\/span><\/div>\r\n
16.2<\/span>\u00a0Mass, Energy, and the Theory of Relativity<\/span><\/div>\r\n
16.3<\/span>\u00a0The Solar Interior: Theory<\/span><\/div>\r\n
16.4<\/span>\u00a0The Solar Interior: Observations<\/span><\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n
\r\n

The Sun puts out an incomprehensible amount of energy\u2014so much that its ultraviolet radiation can cause sunburns from 93 million miles away. It is also very old. As you learned earlier, evidence shows that the Sun formed about 4.5 billion years ago and has been shining ever since. How can the Sun produce so much energy for so long?<\/p>\r\n

The Sun\u2019s energy output is about [latex]4 \\times {10^{26}}[\/latex]\u00a0watts. This is unimaginably bright: brighter than a trillion cities together each with a trillion 100-watt light bulbs. Most known methods of generating energy fall far short of the capacity of the Sun. The total amount of energy produced over the entire life of the Sun is staggering, since the Sun has been shining for billions of years. Scientists were unable to explain the seemingly unlimited energy of stars like the Sun prior to the twentieth century.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n

This book was adapted from the following: Fraknoi, A., Morrison, D., & Wolff, S. C. (2016). Thinking Ahead In Astronomy<\/i>. OpenStax. https:\/\/openstax.org\/books\/astronomy\/pages\/16-thinking-ahead under a Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0<\/a><\/div>\r\n
Access the entire book for free at\u00a0https:\/\/openstax.org\/books\/astronomy\/pages\/1-introduction<\/a><\/div>","rendered":"
\n
\n
\n
\"A
Figure\u00a016.1<\/strong>\u00a0The Sun.\u00a0It takes an incredible amount of energy for the Sun to shine, as it has and will continue to do for billions of years. (credit: modification of work by Ed Dunens)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\n

Chapter Outline<\/h3>\n
16.1<\/span>\u00a0Sources of Sunshine: Thermal and Gravitational Energy<\/span><\/div>\n
16.2<\/span>\u00a0Mass, Energy, and the Theory of Relativity<\/span><\/div>\n
16.3<\/span>\u00a0The Solar Interior: Theory<\/span><\/div>\n
16.4<\/span>\u00a0The Solar Interior: Observations<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n

The Sun puts out an incomprehensible amount of energy\u2014so much that its ultraviolet radiation can cause sunburns from 93 million miles away. It is also very old. As you learned earlier, evidence shows that the Sun formed about 4.5 billion years ago and has been shining ever since. How can the Sun produce so much energy for so long?<\/p>\n

The Sun\u2019s energy output is about [latex]4 \\times {10^{26}}[\/latex]\u00a0watts. This is unimaginably bright: brighter than a trillion cities together each with a trillion 100-watt light bulbs. Most known methods of generating energy fall far short of the capacity of the Sun. The total amount of energy produced over the entire life of the Sun is staggering, since the Sun has been shining for billions of years. Scientists were unable to explain the seemingly unlimited energy of stars like the Sun prior to the twentieth century.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

This book was adapted from the following: Fraknoi, A., Morrison, D., & Wolff, S. C. (2016). Thinking Ahead In Astronomy<\/i>. OpenStax. https:\/\/openstax.org\/books\/astronomy\/pages\/16-thinking-ahead under a Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0<\/a><\/div>\n
Access the entire book for free at\u00a0https:\/\/openstax.org\/books\/astronomy\/pages\/1-introduction<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"parent":0,"menu_order":16,"template":"","meta":{"pb_part_invisible":false,"pb_part_invisible_string":""},"contributor":[],"license":[],"class_list":["post-538","part","type-part","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ccconline.org\/astronomy\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/parts\/538","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ccconline.org\/astronomy\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/parts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ccconline.org\/astronomy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/part"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ccconline.org\/astronomy\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/parts\/538\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1009,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ccconline.org\/astronomy\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/parts\/538\/revisions\/1009"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ccconline.org\/astronomy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"contributor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ccconline.org\/astronomy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/contributor?post=538"},{"taxonomy":"license","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ccconline.org\/astronomy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/license?post=538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}