what keeps the sun burming

Question: what keeps the sun burming

Asked by amiara to Chris, Emily, Martin, Natalie, Tamsin on 15 Mar 2010 in Categories: General.
- Emily Cook answered on 15 Mar 2010:
  
  Fusion!
  
  The sun is a ball of gas and in the middle light gases, like hydrogen, are squidged together to make bigger atoms, like helium. This gives out huge amounts of energy that we can detect as light and heat.
- Chris Cooper answered on 15 Mar 2010:
  
  Nuclear reactions – there are the equivalent of lots of nuclear bombs going off all the time inside the sun! Scientifically this process is called nuclear fusion.
- Martin Coath answered on 15 Mar 2010:
  
  Very good question. This is a question about `nuclear energy’
  
  The sun is mostly made of very hot, light gases under a lot of pressure.
  
  The atoms in these gases join together to make heavier stuff. The AMAZING thing is that the resulting heavy atoms ar NOT as heavy as the the all the light atoms put together – it is almost like 2+2=3.7 not 4!
  
  The missing mass (weight) is converted to energy which makes everything very `energetic’ (ie HOT!!!!!) and the reaction keeps going because of the heat and pressure.
  
  This is NOT how nuclear reactors found on earth work but a lot of people are trying to build reactors that do work in this way to make cheap electricity.
  
  Try looking up Fission, and Fusion and get back to me if you need any more info.
  
  Cheers

Question: what keeps the sun burming