Those thermonuclear bombs called "stars"

[Humberto]

I think it is amazing that stars have enough fuel in them to burn for billions of years.

 

[copacetic]

It is.

 

[Humberto]

Stars don't really burn. It's more like a giant explosion which lasts billions of years. With the cold weather this past week, I've spent some time in the sun, bathing in the radiation emitted by this explosion 150,000,000 km away, feeling the heat on my skin, warmer than a 1000 W parabolic heater inside.

 

[Arthur]

Yes. Staggeringly magnificent.

And even the therms streaming from the gas heater in the TV room ultimately come from the sun.

 

[nightjar]

I think it is amazing that stars have enough fuel in them to burn for billions of years.

I think you will enjoy reading the book, "Sun in a Bottle" by Charles Seife

 

[Swa]

I think you will enjoy reading the book, "Sun in a Bottle" by Charles Seife

Spirulina?

 

[nightjar]

Spirulina?

More interesting.

The Strange History of Fusion and the Science of Wishful Thinking
http://books.google.co.za/books?id=...a=X&ei=jpDVT_bvG5KHhQfWhKTOAw&ved=0CDoQ6AEwAA

 

[isie]

I think it is amazing that stars have enough fuel in them to burn for billions of years.

I love the fact that when it comes to stars, the saying "the bigger they are the hardr they fall" really does apply to them in a feaking awesome way

 

[Geriatrix]

Not sure if this is a circle jerk thread...

 

[grok]

Yeah, but did you see the size of that thing .. ?

Pic of Venus, roughly the size of Earth, as it transits the sun (that's that yellow ball of fire in the background if you didn't know).

From http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/ on of my fav places on the web.

 

[Humberto]

http://www.universetoday.com/75803/how-does-the-sun-produce-energy/:

Fusing hydrogen into helium releases around 0.7% of the fused mass as energy, so the Sun releases energy at the mass-energy conversion rate of 4.26 million metric tons per second.

Mass of the Sun, according to http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/factsheet/sunfact.html: 1,989,100 x 10[SUP]24[/SUP] kg

Mass of the Earth, according to http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/factsheet/earthfact.html: 5.9736 x 10[SUP]24[/SUP] kg

• Does this mean the sun weighs 4.29 x 10[SUP]9[/SUP] kg less with every passing second?
• Does the radiation emitted by stars create a gravitational field? If not, does that mean the sum total of the Universe's spacetime distortion, caused by gravity, gets less over time?
• With F = G x m[SUB]1[/SUB] x m[SUB]2[/SUB] / r[SUP]2[/SUP], G = 6.67 x 10[SUP]-11[/SUP] m[SUP]3[/SUP] kg[SUP]-1[/SUP] s[SUP]-2[/SUP], and r = 150 x 10[SUP]9[/SUP] m, does this mean the gravitational force between the Sun and the Earth decreases by around 75 N every second?

 

[ScottulusMaximus]

"0.7% of the fused mass as energy" not 0.7% of the mass of the sun ie:- once the sun has fused all of its available fuel it will have lost 0.7% of it's mass.

The mass of the sun produces the gravitational field, yes the radiation given off does have some tiny mass but is miniscule compared to the gravitational pull of our star.

The force between the sun and us will decrease slightly over time but not much to be concerned about, sun will expand and swallow the earth long before it's lost enough mass for us to fly away...