The sun is mainly composed of helium and what other element?

Answer 1

The Sun is, at present, about 90.1% hydrogen and 9.9% helium and a small mixture of heavy elements(iron, calcium,sodium).This changes slowly over time as the Sun converts hydrogen to helium in its core.

Answer 2

The sun is mainly composed of hydrogen and helium. Hydrogen accounts for about 75% of its mass, while helium makes up about 24%. Other elements, like oxygen, carbon, and nitrogen, make up less than 1% of its composition.

Answer 3

The sun is mainly hydrogen gas (91.2% )which burns to form helium (8.7%). Traces of other heavier elements are formed by fusion reactions such as oxygen, carbon, nitrogen, silicon, magnesium, neon, iron and sulfur (all of these are much less than 1% of the total mass of the Sun.

Answer 4

The Sun is about 70% hydrogen, 28% helium, and about 2% heavier elements. As time goes on, the Sun's nuclear reaction is fusing hydrogen into helium, so that the proportion of hydrogen is slowly falling and the percentage of helium is slowly increasing.

Answer 5

Hydrogen-1 is converted into helium-4, at a high temperature and pressure, in a process known as "nuclear fusion". This produces a lot of energy. For details about the main reaction occurring in the Sun, take a look at the Wikipedia article on the "proton-proton reaction".

Answer 6

Closer to 30% actually, but the helium is the "ash" left over from the nuclear fusion "fire" that powers the Sun.

We believe that our Sun was mostly hydrogen when the solar system formed, and when the gravity of all that hydrogen pulled it all together, it compressed and heated the hydrogen gas. At about 15 million degrees, nuclear fusion started to generate energy, keeping the Sun shining. Four atoms of hydrogen come together to form one atom of helium, and leaves a little energy left over.

5 billion years or so from now, the helium will be over 50% of the Sun's mass, and it will start to collapse again. This increases the pressure and the temperature, and at about 30 million degrees, the helium itself will begin to fuse, causing the Sun to expand into a red giant. After another billion years, the Sun will begin to collapse into a white dwarf, and begin to die out.

Answer 7

Technically, it is made up of plasma - i.e., ionized gas. This is considered another state of matter.

The most common element in the Universe - at its current stage! - is hydrogen, followed by helium. At some point, such gases (and a smaller amount of heavier elements) come together to form a star (such as the Sun). Due to the extreme heat generated when a star is formed, which is later increased by the nuclear fusion in the star's core, ANY material within the star can only be in the form of a gas - or rather, a plasma.

Answer 8

Not solely. The surface of the Sun consists of hydrogen (74%), helium (24%), and trace quantities of other elements, including iron, nickel, oxygen, silicon, sulphur, magnesium, carbon, neon, calcium, and chromium. The hydrogen turns - by nuclear fusion - to helium and when the hyrdrogen fusion process ends the helium will in turn fuse into other elements.

Answer 9

Matter in the Sun exists of super-heated plasma and is composed mostly of hydrogen and helium, with trace amounts of other gases.

Answer 10

The sun is primarily made up of hydrogen and helium.