Standing on the earth, we will see a glowing and burning fiery red sun, which has been with the earth for 4.6 billion years, bringing light and heat to the earth, and bringing the breath of life. Without the care of the sun, the earth would not form a beautiful ecosystem, nor would there be the birth of life, the birth of mankind.
Therefore, in a sense, the sun is the mother of all life on the earth. People in ancient times didn’t know much about the sun. They only knew that it was a burning fireball, and they had no idea about its fuel pattern, mass, etc. As we know, many myths and legends about the sun have emerged from this.
With the continuous development of human civilization, we embarked on the path of scientific and technological development hundreds of years ago. With the help of scientific power, we can see a more real sun through astronomical telescopes, especially after human beings walked out of the earth and stood in space. In, we even saw the true face of the sun.
The sun is a star in the center of the solar system. Its mass is 333,000 times that of the earth. The earth is a little bit in front of the sun. This is completely different from our feeling when we see the sun on the earth. So what is the burning pattern of the sun? Early scientists thought that the burning of the sun was similar to chemical burning on the earth, but later scientists denied it.
You must know that chemical combustion requires oxygen to support combustion, and space is an almost vacuum environment, and there is no oxygen that can help chemical combustion. Therefore, the burning of the sun is not a chemical reaction. What kind of mode is that?
After human beings began to recognize nuclear energy, some scientists thought of nuclear fusion reactions. Through a large number of observational studies, they finally determined that the burning of the sun is a hydrogen nuclear fusion mode, and the principle is the same as that of a hydrogen bomb. The sun has been burning for 5 billion years through nuclear fusion reactions. In theory, it can continue to burn for 5 billion years before it goes out.
So someone thought of a way to extinguish the sun in advance, and that is to do it through a huge amount of water. A friend suggested that the mass of the sun is about 200 billion billion tons, so as long as we gather water with the same mass as the sun, and then surround the sun and continuously pour it on, it is possible to exterminate the sun. So is this method feasible? Can enough water really extinguish the sun?
We all know that the mass of the sun is composed of 98.3% of hydrogen and helium, of which hydrogen is the most, accounting for 73.5%. The core area of the sun, which occupies a quarter of the diameter of the sun, is the space where nuclear fusion is located. The temperature here is as high as 16 million degrees Celsius. Every moment, four hydrogen nuclei collide and combine to form a helium nucleus. During this period, 0.7% of its mass, or 4.26 million tons, is lost.
The lost 4.26 million tons of mass is converted into energy and released. According to Einstein’s mass-energy equation, it can be calculated that the energy released by the sun per second is 3.85×10^26 joules. In the past 4.6 billion years, the sun’s nuclear fusion reaction has lost 103 earth masses.
If water of the same quality is put around the sun, a water ball with a thickness of 240,000 kilometers will form, enveloping the sun. The sun is completely surrounded by massive amounts of water, and then continuously poured onto the sun’s surface, can the sun be extinguished?
First of all, we must understand that the burning of the sun is a nuclear fusion reaction, which is achieved through pressure and temperature. As long as the central pressure and temperature meet the conditions for nuclear fusion, then nuclear fusion will continue until the hydrogen is consumed.
Therefore, if you want to extinguish the sun, you need to lower the temperature and pressure of the fusion area in the center of the sun. As long as the temperature and pressure can be lowered, the hydrogen fusion in the center of the sun will stop and the sun can be extinguished. Is it possible to pour a lot of water on the sun?
Water is a substance with a density of about 1000 kg/m3. A large amount of water brings greater mass. Water of the same mass on the surface of the sun will greatly increase the mass of the sun. As the mass of the sun increases, the pressure in the central area will increase, which will accelerate the hydrogen nuclear fusion reaction, thereby releasing more energy and causing the sun’s temperature to rise sharply.
So watering the sun with water is actually adding fuel to the fire. It will not extinguish the sun, but will burn more vigorously. From a distance, you will find that the sun is more dazzling and the temperature is higher. Of course, the larger the mass of the star, the shorter its lifespan. For example, Sirius has about twice the mass of the sun, and it generates 25 times the energy per second, so its lifespan is only ten times that of the sun. one.
Water of the same solar mass cannot extinguish the sun, but what if it is infinite water? If the supply of water is unlimited and the total mass is an infinite value, can the sun be extinguished? We said earlier that if the sun wants to go out, it needs to reduce the pressure and temperature of the central area, but a large amount of water will only bring greater mass and greater pressure to the sun.
Therefore, the amount of water as heavy as the sun is poured on the sun, and the sun cannot be extinguished, at best it is just a tickling. Although infinite water can’t directly extinguish the sun, it can increase the mass of the sun infinitely, thereby increasing the pressure rapidly. The rapid increase in pressure will intensify the internal nuclear fusion reaction, thereby accelerating the sun’s end of life.
In theory, as long as the sun is given unlimited water, the hydrogen fusion reaction in the center of the sun will not take long to stop. The nuclear fusion reaction in the center stops, so no new energy will be produced. In this case, will the surface of the sun go out soon? the answer is negative.
Although the speed of photons reaches the speed of light, it only takes 2 seconds to traverse the diameter of the sun in a vacuum, but because the interior of the sun is a dense environment, photons will experience countless collisions as they reach the surface from the center. , Thereby greatly extending its time to the surface. According to the research of scientists, it takes about 100,000 years for photons to reach the surface from the center.
It can be seen that extinguishing the sun is not as easy as we think, and man-made intervention in the operation of the sun will also bring about the instability of the sun, break its internal balance, and cause uncontrollable consequences. Therefore, even if human beings become more advanced in technology in the future, the sun cannot be rushed to intervene, but to let it run naturally until its life span is reached.