How Do Sun Produce Light?

Sun is the lifeline to Earth. We can’t imagine our single day without Sun. Sun is the source of solar energy. Its energy reaches to us in the form of heat, light, ultraviolet rays, sunlight, radiation etc. Sun rays or Sunlight is very beneficial for lots of things like human skin, solar panel, plants all live because of light gifted by Sun. Sun can produce light because of nuclear reaction which is called fusion. As atoms of hydrogen combine to form helium it produces enormous heat and light. Sun is mostly composed of hydrogen (70%) and helium (28%).

If you are suddenly thinking that why is Sun so important? Then just ask yourself can you imagine a day without sunshine or sunlight? Well, I think yours and mine both answers are complete NO, not at all. Yes, Sun is the essence of our life and it was always, it is the essence of our Earth. We cannot imagine what life would be without sun.

Sun is very important for our Earth not only for it but also for our whole solar system. Sun illuminates our day by illuminating the different objects; plants can process photosynthesis below the beautiful open sky only because of the sun, we can use solar energy because of Sun, human skin can make large amounts of vitamin D with the help of the sun, the temperature is under control because of Sun and most important Sun gives us light and many other things that we even don’t know. Indirectly, Sun is a lifeline to us.

Where does Sun get its energy? Does sun go out to buy lights like we buy bulb and tube lights from the market etc or connecting different wires? NO, Sun does none of those human activities.

Sun produces its own light. Sun is a luminous object (objects that emit their own lights). But how? How does it produce energy and how its energy comes to us?

Contents

How Sun produces or creates light?

Sun can produce light because of nuclear reaction called fusion to be more specific. As atoms of hydrogen combine to form helium it produces enormous or immeasurable heat and light.

Let’s first understand what is nuclear fusion?

What is nuclear fusion?

When two lighter nuclei combine to form a nucleus a large amount of energy is released. This process is called as nuclear fusion.

Nuclear fusion takes place in the sun. The nuclei of two hydrogen atoms combine or join together to form a heavy or big nucleus of helium which realises a large amount of energy. In this way, Sun produces its own energy which is heat and light to us. The sun produces its energy which is called solar energy.

Below a video is attached which describes Sun more beautifully.

How the Solar energy comes to us?

The energy released after nuclear fusion reaches to us in the form of sunlight like ultraviolet rays, radiation, heat and etc.

Sunlight appears to us white in colour but in reality, it poses a mixture of all the colours of the rainbow- VIBGYOR, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet.

Some interesting facts about Sun-

Sun is 4.6 billion years old.
Sun is mostly composed of hydrogen (70%) and helium (28%) only.
The hottest part of the Sun is in center or core. Sun’s core is extremely hot.
Light from the Sun reaches to earth around in 8 minutes.
The solar eclipse occurs when the moon is between the Sun and the Earth.
Earth could fit into the Sun over 1million times. Hmm, how gigantic is Sun.
The diameter of the Sun is 864,000 miles or 1,390,000 kilometers, its diameter is around 109 times that of our Earth.
Without the Sun there would not be life on Earth.
Sun is almost a perfect sphere.
Sun is about 400times larger than the Moon.