The sun is the boss of the solar system and the main reason why life can be born on Earth. In ancient times, due to the lack of astronomical knowledge, people naturally knew little about the earth and the sun, so they deified the sun. With the continuous progress of human civilization, the emergence of science and technology has given human beings hope to explore the universe. When humans invented the astronomical telescope , some secrets of the universe have been revealed in front of our eyes, and we know that the sun is a star.
The universe is vast, and the sun in it is just an insignificant one. It is extremely huge, emitting dazzling light and burning. Looking at the sun in space is completely different from being on Earth, and you can feel the terrifying temperature of the sun in space. The dazzling existence of the sun naturally attracts scientists to study it, and what scientists are most interested in is why the sun burns. According to scientists' research and analysis, the solar system has been 4.6 billion years old and the sun has been burning for 4.6 billion years. Why haven't it been extinguished yet?
What is the energy source of the sun? We all know that combustion is a chemical reaction that emits light and heat. Why has the sun burned for 4.6 billion years not gone? There must be some kind of fuel supporting it. Astronomers once boldly predicted: Is the burning of the sun also a chemical reaction? The whole sun is a large burning coal ball. Later this theory was overturned because if the sun was a coal ball, it could only burn for tens of millions of years, but the sun's age had already exceeded tens of millions of years.
In the 1920s, Eddington proposed that the energy of the sun is converted from its mass. Eindington's discovery was inspired by the mass-energy equation E=mc^2 of Einstein . Through this mass-energy method, Einstein proved that any mass object must have the same energy. Einstein is the greatest physicist in the scientific world known to almost everyone. The theory of relativity he proposed has a huge impact on the development of modern physics and the development of modern human thought.
Inspired by Einstein's mass-energy equation , scientists proposed that the sun actually converts mass into energy. Its core is a huge nuclear power plant . Nuclear fusion reaction occurs all the time. The generated photon heats up from the inside of the sun to the surface. The sun contains a large amount of hydrogen atom . Inside the sun, four hydrogen protons fuse together to form an helium atom . During the fusion process, a small part of the mass of the four protons will be lost. Because the mass and energy are conserved , the power of the solar radiation is as high as 3.9×1026 watts is caused by the huge energy converted by these mass. Judging from the current electricity consumption of human beings, the energy generated by the sun every second is far more than the electricity consumption of hundreds of thousands of centuries around the world.
We have been instilled with the sun as a big fireball since we were young, but you must know that there is no oxygen in space, and the sun cannot burn without oxygen. The reason why it can last for so long and bring light and heat is that the sun actually relies on thermonuclear reactions to heat up. What is a thermonuclear reaction? To put it bluntly, it is the same as the explosion principle of the hydrogen bomb . That is, the physical reaction achieved by nuclear fusion is generally made of atoms with smaller mass. This process will release a large number of extranuclear electrons and neutrons in atom nucleus . The characteristic that it shows to the outside world is the huge energy release.
fusion reaction of hydrogen nucleus is carried out inside the sun. About 600 million tons of hydrogen undergo fusion reactions at the sun's core every second. Therefore, the surface of the sun is filled with nuclear fusion reaction products. Therefore, when the thermonuclear reaction is over, the sun completely loses energy.
So the question is, when will this thermonuclear reaction that has lasted for 5 billion years end? Modern Astrophysics tells us that any star in the universe has a lifespan, and this lifespan span is quite large. Between 500,000 years and 1 trillion years, generally speaking, the larger the mass of a star, the shorter its lifespan, mainly because nuclear fusion will lose mass. The larger the mass, the more vigorous the thermonuclear reaction inside it, which will aggravate the mass loss of the star. Only when the mass loss is exhausted will the star truly usher in "extinguishing".
At first glance, the sun, which has been 5 billion years, is in this life span range, and the pattern of the sun in the stars is relatively small, belonging to the category of yellow dwarfs, with a life span of about 10 billion years. This means that the sun is in its prime at its peak, and is it still early before it can be "extinguished"? When the nuclear fusion inside the sun is about to stop, the sun will quickly expand into a red giant, continuing to undergo nuclear fusion with lower intensity, and the temperature on its surface will also decrease. Finally, when all the content is burned, the red giant will explode and the core will transform into an white dwarf .
Regarding stars, there are generally three endings. Depending on volume and mass, the final destination of a star is also different. Smaller stars evolve into white dwarfs when they reach the end of their lives, a pure and beautiful celestial body. Larger stars will evolve into neutron star after burning, which is a very dense celestial body and the most mysterious celestial body in the universe except for black holes. The sun is just a very small star in the universe, so it will eventually evolve into a white dwarf, but this is a very good ending, so that the solar system can still exist. If it evolves into a black hole, the black hole's super-devouring ability will swallow all the celestial bodies of the entire sun, and the solar system will no longer exist.
No matter what the final outcome of the sun is, what we can be sure of is: Earth, the only planet known in the universe that exists in life, is highly dependent on the sun's light and heat, so as to provide all life with the energy required. The largest gravitational source and energy source in the solar system no longer exist. What will the Earth and other planets become? Can humans find new livable homes? In fact, everyone does not need to be so pessimistic, because after repeated calculations and speculations by scientists, the sun can still exist stably for about 5 billion years. During this period, our technology will continue to develop rapidly. Perhaps in the near future, human activity space will be able to break through the earth and extend into the vast space.
Only 4.6 billion years after the formation of the earth, humans only appeared, which shows that a living planet takes an extremely long time to be born, so the lifespan of stars must also be a necessary condition for the birth of life planets or smart civilizations in other galaxies in the universe. A hundred years later, or more, will humans find planets that can replace Earth in the vast universe, or will they escape from the solar system with Earth like in " Wandering Earth "? No one can give a positive answer, but human beings will definitely not stop developing science and technology and exploring the universe.
