How Does the Sun Get Its Energy?

Important Words Gravity Nuclear fusion Deuterium Tritium E = mc2

The Sun The sun is HUGE! So big that over 1 million earths could fit inside it!!

The Sun When something is that big, it has a lot of GRAVITY Gravity is a force that brings things together Bigger things have more gravity

The Sun’s Gravity The earth has a lot of gravity too. We feel it a lot more than the sun’s gravity because it’s closer to us. In fact, the earth’s gravity is the only gravity that we can really feel

Sun’s Gravity But the sun has more! MUCH, MUCH more!! In fact, at the centre of the sun, the force of gravity is so incredibly strong that it can actually crush the hydrogen atoms together. This is called nuclear fusion and it can’t happen on earth

Nuclear Fusion The sun actually takes two isotopes of hydrogen and fuses them together to make helium

Nuclear Fusion When this happens, a large amount of energy is released. In fact, Einstein figured out an equation to calculate the energy that is released: E=mc2 Where E is the energy, m is the mass, and c is the speed of light

Nuclear Fusion The sun converts 600 million tons of hydrogen to helium every second!! This releases 400 trillion watts of power All that energy is what makes the sun so hot and so bright 00

Will the Sun Ever Run out of Fuel? YES!! And when it does, it will swell up and engulf the earth before collapsing into a tiny dwarf star. But there’s good news! This won’t happen for another 5 billion years!

The Sun So get outside and enjoy the sun!!