Internal structure

Energy generation and transport

The energy radiated by the Sun is produced during the conversion of hydrogen (H) atoms to helium (He). The Sun is at least 90 percent hydrogen by number of atoms, so the fuel is readily available. Since one hydrogen atom weighs 1.0078 atomic mass units and a single helium atom weighs 4.0026, the conversion of four hydrogen atoms to one helium atom yields 0.0294 mass unit, which are all converted to energy, 6.8 million electron volts (MeV, 1 MeV = 1.6 × 10⁻⁶ erg), in the form of gamma (γ) rays or the kinetic energy of the products. If all the hydrogen is converted, 0.7 percent of the mass becomes energy, according to the Einstein formula E = mc², in which E represents the energy, m is the mass, and c is the speed of light. A calculation of the time required to convert all the hydrogen in the Sun provides an estimate of the length of time for which the Sun can continue to radiate energy. In only about 10 percent of the Sun are the temperatures high enough to sustain fusion reactions. Converting 0.7 percent of the 2 × 10³² grams of hydrogen into energy that is radiated at 4 × 10³³ ergs per second permits the Sun to shine for 3 × 10¹⁷ seconds, or 10 billion years at the present rate.

The process of energy generation results from the enormous pressure and density at the centre of the Sun, which makes it possible for nuclei to overcome electrostatic repulsion. (Nuclei are positive and thus repel each other.) Once in some billions of years a given proton (¹H, in which the superscript represents the mass of the isotope) is close enough to another to undergo a process called inverse beta decay, in which one proton becomes a neutron and combines with the second to form a deuteron (²D). This is shown symbolically on the first line of equation 1, in which e⁻ is an electron and ν is a subatomic particle known as a neutrino.

While this is a rare event, hydrogen atoms are so numerous that it is the main solar energy source. Subsequent encounters (listed on the second and third lines) proceed much faster: the deuteron encounters one of the ubiquitous protons to produce helium-3 (³He), and these in turn form helium-4 (⁴He). The net result is that four hydrogen atoms are fused into one helium atom. The energy is carried off by gamma-ray photons (γ) and neutrinos, ν. Because the nuclei must have enough energy to overcome the electrostatic barrier, the rate of energy production varies as the fourth power of the temperature.

Equation 1 shows that for every two hydrogen atoms converted, one neutrino of average energy 0.26 MeV carrying 1.3 percent of the total energy released is produced. This produces a flux of 8 × 10¹⁰ neutrinos per square centimetre per second at Earth. The first experiment designed to detect solar neutrinos was built in the 1960s by American scientist Raymond Davis (for which he won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 2002) and carried out deep underground in the Homestake gold mine in Lead, South Dakota, U.S. The solar neutrinos in equation 1 had an energy (less than 0.42 MeV) that was too low to be detected by this experiment; however, subsequent processes produced higher energy neutrinos that Davis’s experiment could detect. The number of these higher energy neutrinos observed was far smaller than would be expected from the known energy-generation rate, but experiments established that these neutrinos did in fact come from the Sun. This discrepancy became known as the solar neutrino problem. One possible reason for the small number detected was that the presumed rates of the subordinate process are not correct. Another, more intriguing, possibility was that the neutrinos produced in the core of the Sun interact with the vast solar mass and change to a different kind of neutrino that cannot be observed. The existence of such a process would have great significance for nuclear theory, for it requires a small mass for the neutrino. In 2002 results from the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory, nearly 2,100 metres (6,800 feet) underground in the Creighton nickel mine near Sudbury, Ontario, Canada, showed that the solar neutrinos did change their type and thus that the neutrino had a small mass. These results solved the solar neutrino problem.

In addition to being carried away as neutrinos, which simply disappear into the cosmos, the energy produced in the core of the Sun takes two other forms as well. Some is released as the kinetic energy of product particles, which heats the gases in the core, while some travels outward as gamma-ray photons until they are absorbed and reradiated by the local atoms. Because the nuclei at the core are completely ionized, or stripped of their electrons, the photons are simply scattered there into a different path. The density is so high that the photons travel only a few millimetres before they are scattered. Farther out the nuclei have electrons attached, so they can absorb and reemit the photons, but the effect is the same: the photons take a so-called random walk outward until they escape from the Sun. The distance covered in a random walk is the average distance traveled between collisions (known as the mean free path) multiplied by the square root of the number of steps, in which a step is an interval between successive collisions. As the average mean free path in the Sun is about 10 centimetres (4 inches), the photon must take 5 × 10¹⁹ steps to travel 7 × 10¹⁰ centimetres. Even at the speed of light this process takes 170,000 years, and so the light seen today was generated long ago. The final step from the Sun’s surface to Earth, however, takes only eight minutes.

As photons are absorbed by the outer portion of the Sun, the temperature gradient increases and convection occurs. Great currents of hot plasma, or ionized gas, carry heat upward. These mass motions of conducting plasma in the convective zone, which constitutes approximately the outer 30 percent of the Sun, may be responsible for the sunspot cycle. The ionization of hydrogen plays an important role in the transport of energy through the Sun. Atoms are ionized at the bottom of the convective zone and are carried upward to cooler regions, where they recombine and liberate the energy of ionization. Just below the surface, radiation transport again becomes efficient, but the effects of convection are clearly visible in the photosphere.