# How can the sun, burn.
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-the-sun-burn/654537
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [April 1, 2013, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-the-sun-burn/654537 "2013-04-01T15:41:27Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Derc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derc)
#### Post date: [April 1, 2013, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-the-sun-burn/654537/1 "2013-04-01T15:41:27Z")
If the triangle of fire is composed of Heat, Fuel and Oxygen,
How does the sun continue to burn without oxygen?
I know it’s decaying to form a white giant, eventually but isn’t that due to lack of fuel?
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### Author:  [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)
#### Post date: [April 1, 2013, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-the-sun-burn/654537/2 "2013-04-01T15:46:18Z")
It doesn’t burn. It’s essentially a big ball of gas that is undergoing nuclear fusion…so, it’s not burning the hydrogen, it’s fusing hydrogen into (IIRC) helium, and in the process releasing immense energy in the form of heat and light (and some other stuff).
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### Author:  [@moriah](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/moriah)
#### Post date: [April 1, 2013, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-the-sun-burn/654537/3 "2013-04-01T18:06:08Z")
“Burn” is used analogously. There is no oxidation and no flame. It’s a fusion “burn.”
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### Author:  [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)
#### Post date: [April 2, 2013, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-the-sun-burn/654537/4 "2013-04-02T00:53:38Z")
> [@XT](#):
>
> It doesn’t burn. It’s essentially a big ball of gas that is undergoing nuclear fusion…so, it’s not burning the hydrogen, it’s fusing hydrogen into (IIRC) helium, and in the process releasing immense energy in the form of heat and light (and some other stuff).
Nonsense, dear boy! The Sun is a big ball of burning coal that is releasing phlogiston that is carried to Earth on the luminiferous aether that fills Outer Space. As a ball of coal that size would only burn about 6000 years, and the Universe was created about 6000 years ago, we are living on borrowed time, and at any time the Sun will be snuffed like a candle. We should thank God that he has Jesus bank the Sun’s fire between sundown and sunrise or we’d be in big trouble.
I don’t know where you and **moriah** got that crackpottery that you spouted in this thread, but what I know I learned in a proper school from a proper book. This is like that line of crap you guys tell about how the stars are suns themselves. I mean, if they are suns then why are they not hot, huh?
There! I’ve run rings around you logically.
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### Author:  [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)
#### Post date: [April 2, 2013, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-the-sun-burn/654537/5 "2013-04-02T00:59:04Z")
> [@Derc](#):
>
> How does the sun continue to burn without oxygen?
> I know it’s decaying to form a white giant, eventually but isn’t that due to lack of fuel?
The Sun is a yellow dwarf star (spectral class G2V). It is composed of about 75% hydrogen, 23% helium, and the rest small quantities of heavier elements including a small amount of oxygen generated by the CNO fusion cycle (which accounts for less than 1% of the energy output). The primary energy output of the sun is due to proton-proton fusion, which combines free protons (ionized hydrogen) into helium, and then into a series of other products along the p-p chian.
Stranger
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### Author:  [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)
#### Post date: [April 2, 2013, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-the-sun-burn/654537/6 "2013-04-02T01:02:39Z")
> [@dropzone](#):
>
> Nonsense, dear boy! The Sun is a big ball of burning coal that is releasing phlogiston that is carried to Earth on the luminiferous aether that fills Outer Space. As a ball of coal that size would only burn about 6000 years, and the Universe was created about 6000 years ago, we are living on borrowed time, and at any time the Sun will be snuffed like a candle. We should thank God that he has Jesus bank the Sun’s fire between sundown and sunrise or we’d be in big trouble.
>
> I don’t know where you and **moriah** got that crackpottery that you spouted in this thread, but what I know I learned in a proper school from a proper book. This is like that line of crap you guys tell about how the stars are suns themselves. I mean, if they are suns then why are they not hot, huh?
>
> There! I’ve run rings around you logically.
Well, it was either that or the spirits of departed kings looking down on us. I went with the Pumba gambit…
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### Author:  [@Pooter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pooter)
#### Post date: [April 2, 2013, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-the-sun-burn/654537/7 "2013-04-02T01:05:48Z")
> [@](#):
>
> How can the sun burn?
Cause it is hot! lol
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### Author:  [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)
#### Post date: [April 2, 2013, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-the-sun-burn/654537/8 "2013-04-02T01:44:27Z")
> [@Pooter](#):
>
> Cause it is hot! lol
Well, yeah…but that begs the question. WHY is it hot?
(Answer afaik: mass, gravity and pressure sufficient to cause hydrogen which comprises the majority of the sun to undergo fusion and produce helium)
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### Author:  [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)
#### Post date: [April 2, 2013, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-the-sun-burn/654537/9 "2013-04-02T01:54:59Z")
> [@Pooter](#):
>
> Cause it is hot!
> [@XT](#):
>
> Well, yeah…but that begs the question. WHY is it hot?
Because Coyote stole the Sun. He just hasn’t been able to find a reliable fence to sell it to yet.
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### Author:  [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)
#### Post date: [April 2, 2013, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-the-sun-burn/654537/10 "2013-04-02T01:58:53Z")
That trickster! :smack: Always stealing the sun and making it hot with the cops searching avidly for it and all. I knew he was up to something when he said he had a real, genuine Rolex I could have for just a hundred dollars…
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### Author:  [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)
#### Post date: [April 2, 2013, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-the-sun-burn/654537/11 "2013-04-02T02:10:11Z")
> [@XT](#):
>
> Well, it was either that or the spirits of departed kings looking down on us. I went with the Pumba gambit…
Yeah? Hakuna matata to you, too. Did any of the kings sound like James Earl Jones?
I am still convinced that so-called “dark” matter is just luminiferous aether and “dark” energy is phlogiston in new bottles and no amount of explaining will change my mind, mostly because I like that idea and won’t listen to contrary arguments.
And **Derc**? If you want to pass a test or sound informed and aren’t the sorta guy for whom Steam Punk was nothing new because that’s how I’ve always thought, you probably want to listen to the other people in this thread, though they have been criminally misinformed by Modern “Science.” And allow yourself to be amazed as they tell you how we are not merely made of star stuff, but are made of the stuff of _dead_ stars that were born, grew old, and died violently before our own Sun was born. And that our universe is constantly expanding from everywhere, not some static point, so we are each at the center of the universe. Our universe gets weirder and more wonderful with every discovery. Sure, understanding today’s complex world of the future is a little like having bees live in your head. But, there they are.
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### Author:  [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)
#### Post date: [April 2, 2013, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-the-sun-burn/654537/12 "2013-04-02T02:11:19Z")
The sun is a mass of incandescent gas, a gigantic nuclear furnace where hydrogen is turned into helium at a temperature of millions of degrees.
I’ve been told this via a catchy tune, therefore it must be true.
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### Author:  [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)
#### Post date: [April 2, 2013, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-the-sun-burn/654537/13 "2013-04-02T02:11:43Z")
> [@XT](#):
>
> I knew he was up to something when he said he had a real, genuine Rolex I could have for just a hundred dollars…
Did he get it from ACME?
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### Author:  [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)
#### Post date: [April 2, 2013, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-the-sun-burn/654537/14 "2013-04-02T02:17:14Z")
> [@dropzone](#):
>
> Did he get it from ACME?
Well, he said it just fell off the back of a truck, and he LOOKED so honest and trustworthy…
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### Author:  [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)
#### Post date: [April 2, 2013, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-the-sun-burn/654537/15 "2013-04-02T03:11:44Z")
Did he have a big toe that was swollen, red, and throbbing? Because nothing has ever fallen off a truck when Coyote was around that didn’t land on his foot.
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### Author:  [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)
#### Post date: [April 2, 2013, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-the-sun-burn/654537/16 "2013-04-02T03:21:44Z")
> [@Gyrate](#):
>
> I’ve been told this via a catchy tune, therefore it must be true.
I can’t argue with logic like that, as long as it rhymes. If it doesn’t all bets are off.
_researching_ Okay, it does, in places, and has a YouTube video to enhance its veracity:
[ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=me06I9GDM_k)
If it’s on YouTube it must be true.
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### Author:  [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)
#### Post date: [April 2, 2013, 7:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-the-sun-burn/654537/17 "2013-04-02T07:06:56Z")
Better rhyme, from _They Might Be Giants_:
♪ The sun is a miasma
of incandescent plasma… ♫
[ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-KyciKHw-g)
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### Author:  [@C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/C_K_Dexter_Haven)
#### Post date: [April 2, 2013, 10:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-the-sun-burn/654537/18 "2013-04-02T10:39:59Z")
Welcome to the Straight Dope Message Boards, **Derc** , we’re glad you found us. I don’t think your question relates to a specific column of Cecil’s, so I’m moving it to the forum called “General Questions.” (If I’m wrong and you were commenting on a specific column, please email to tell me which one and I’ll happily fix things back.)
No problem, happens alla time.
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### Author:  [@Derc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derc)
#### Post date: [April 2, 2013, 10:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-the-sun-burn/654537/19 "2013-04-02T10:46:24Z")
Thank you for the confusion analysis, I suspect the answer to life, the universe and everything, is as quoted in Montypythonian nomenclature; … 42.
many thanks CK
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### Author:  [@JBDivmstr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JBDivmstr)
#### Post date: [April 2, 2013, 11:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-the-sun-burn/654537/20 "2013-04-02T11:13:59Z")
> [@Derc](#):
>
> Thank you for the confusion analysis, I suspect the answer to life, the universe and everything, is as quoted in Montypythonian nomenclature; … 42.
>
> many thanks CK
42…
Oh… He’s gonna fit right in! 😃
Welcome to the SDMB, **Derc**!
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