The source of this energy is the conversion of mass into energy caused by nuclear fusion reactions that occur within the core. This reaction will only occur at extremely high temperatures and pressures, when gas turns to plasma. In this reaction hydrogen nuclei fuse together to form helium. Each helium nucleus produced has slightly less mass than the hydrogen nuclei that went into it, and this difference is converted into energy, in accordance with Einstein’s famous principle of the equivalence of mass and energy E=mc2,where C represents the speed of light and m represents mass. The heat produced by this reaction is sufficient to activate further reactions and so it is self sustaining. Four million tons of matters are converted to energy each second in the Sun and will continue to do so for the next five billion years.
0 comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.