Q and BA Episode 2: Journey to the Center of the Sun

"How dense is the center of the Sun?" Turns out, pretty frakking dense. Also, the Sun makes a VAST amount of energy there, and I go through a few analogies to help make this make sense. No marshmallows were hurt in the making of this video.

Category:

Howto & Style

Tags:

• phil
• plait
• astronomy
• astronomer
• qandba
• space
• science
• sun
• fusion
• energy
• density

[pjalne]

Wait, a helium atom isn't four hydrogen atoms, is it? Isn't it two hydrogen atoms and two neutrons?

[TheBadAstronomer]

Pjalne, that's correct. That's why I said "it's more complicated than this" in the video. :-) There are several steps involved in getting the hydrogen atoms to make a helium atom. You can look for it on Google; there are lots of sites explaining it.

[TheBadAstronomer]

It's actually my home office, but it doubles as a guest room. But of course you're correct anyway. :-)

[TheBadAstronomer]

Send me email at thebadastronomer "at" gmail "dot" com! That's where I'm collecting all the questions.

[Maxdwolf]

Minor technical point. The 150 grams of sun stuff at the center do not "weigh" anything. :)

[thedarkelf05]

I'm an American and that eye roll was hilarious! I'm also a little sad that most Americans watching would probably need that conversion :P

[sethmusic]

check out the ghost at 1:38 !! jk

[yoctomx]

ok, so you say the Sun is not avarage, but then you fail to tell us why is it so?

[chibraxial]

@TheBadAstronomer

""How dense is the center of the Sun?" Turns out, pretty frakking dense."

Frakking? ... Do I smell some battlestar galactica over there? :)

[jqs1943]

Earth's sun is a planet's core that's evolving. It consists of gigantic spherical magnets that are inundated by a sea of ions in a plasmatic state. It will go through some osmotic metamorphic changes before it accelerates its architectural evolution and becomes a world as we know them.

When brown spots start to appear on its surface its because it has began to develop a skin. The skin will be made up of magnetite which will serve as a medium to support the substratum where the crust will rest.

[haloKINGSstudios]

1:38 a ghost orb thing slides past the screen from the top left :O... or its just some dust ^_^

[LonesomeTroubadour]

It's the mini marshmallow of science!

[GaseousAnomaly001]

There are a total of 4 protons and 4 electrons in the ingredients to fuse a helium atom. There's an interesting property of protons and electrons, where they can combine (i know, it's a bit more complicated than that, but for the sake of simplicity...) to form a neutron. So if you add all 4 protons together in the nucleus, and then add to 2 of them an electron each, you end up with a nucleus of 2 protons, 2 neutrons, surrounded by the remaining 2 electrons. Hope this helped!

[TavPanoramic]

Hi Gitars5

it is because atoms are made up of protons and neutrons, which are of about the same mass, as well as electron(s)with negligible mass. 1 Hydrogen atom has 1proton & no neutron, while a Helium atom has 2protons+2neutrons, so hope u see why the mass of 1 He atom = 4 x H atom.

[Gitars5]

helium is number 2 in the perodic table, then you need 2 hydrogen atoms to create a helium atom, because hydrogen is number 1 and have one proton in its nucleus, so how can you need 4 hydrogen atoms to create a helium atom???? (confused) (sorry if its some typing mistakes i wrote this in a hurry)