How the Sun Shines
What is powering the Sun every single second?
Your turn!
Question 1 of 2What does the Sun fuse together to make energy?
The story
Quarky puts on the thickest sunglasses in the universe and dives into the middle of the Sun. Down there it is unbelievably hot and squished, and hydrogen cores keep smashing together to build helium. Each smash sets free a tiny burst of energy, and trillions of those bursts every second become the sunlight that warms our faces eight minutes later. Quarky even spots quantum tunneling helping the cores sneak together when they should be pushing apart.
What you'll learn
- The Sun makes energy by fusing hydrogen into helium in its core
- Fusion needs enormous heat and pressure to happen
- Quantum tunneling helps particles get close enough to fuse
- Sunlight takes about eight minutes to travel from the Sun to Earth
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