How is hydrogen converted into helium in the Sun?

In the core of the Sun hydrogen is being converted into helium. This is called nuclear fusion. It takes four hydrogen atoms to fuse into each helium atom. During the process some of the mass is converted into energy.

Why do the hydrogen atoms fuse in the Sun?

The sheer mass of the Sun crushes the atoms of hydrogen within it under gravity, forcing the pressure and temperature up to the point where the nuclei of hydrogen atoms fuse together.

When the Sun’s core stops fusing hydrogen into helium What will happen?

Stars spend approximately a few thousand to 1 billion years as a red giant. Eventually, the helium in the core runs out and fusion stops. The star shrinks again until a new helium shell reaches the core.

Does the Sun fuse helium into hydrogen?

The Sun is a main-sequence star, and, as such, generates its energy by nuclear fusion of hydrogen nuclei into helium. In its core, the Sun fuses 620 million metric tons of hydrogen and makes 616 million metric tons of helium each second.

What happens when helium combines hydrogen?

Fusion is the process that powers the sun and the stars. It is the reaction in which two atoms of hydrogen combine together, or fuse, to form an atom of helium. In the process some of the mass of the hydrogen is converted into energy. Thus fusion has the potential to be an inexhaustible source of energy.

What is the core formed when helium fuses with hydrogen?

When the core temperature reaches 100 million K, the helium nuclei now have sufficient kinetic energy to overcome the strong coulombic repulsion and fuse together, forming carbon-12 in a two-stage process. As three helium nuclei, also known as alpha particles, are used it is called the triple alpha process.

How does hydrogen fuse into helium in the Sun?

So those are the four possible overall steps available to the components that make up then entire “hydrogen fusing into helium” process in the Sun: Helium-3 fuses with helium-4, producing beryllium-7, which decays and then fuses with another proton (hydrogen-1) to yield two helium-4 nuclei plus energy.

What happens when a star’s core changes from hydrogen to helium?

Most stars, after converting a significant portion of their hydrogen to helium undergo an internal change. The internal core collapses, and heats up, until it is hot enough to fuse helium into larger atoms, for instance, by combining three helium atoms into carbon. At this same time, some helium will fuse with that carbon to produce oxygen.

What causes nuclear fusion to occur at the centre of Sun?

Intense gravity causes Nuclear Fusion to occur in Helium atoms at the centre of the Sun. Nuclear fusion occurs when the pressure is high enough to force atoms of hydrogen to come together in the nuclear fusion reaction.

What happens when the sun burns hydrogen?

The process of “burning hydrogen” involves not only crossing a potential barrier around another proton, but also a weak decay “in the right moment”. This slowness makes the Sun shine for billions of years. But eventually almost all hydrogen present in the core of the Sun will turn into helium.