How did scientists know that the sun is made up of mainly hydrogen and helium atoms?

Scientists use spectroscopy to determine the composition of the Sun. Unlike the Earth, the Sun is made primarily of light elements. It is a fairly typical main sequence star composed of 74\% hydrogen, 25\% helium.

How do we know the sun is made of hydrogen and helium?

The hydrogen and helium are in a gas form. You might wonder how we know that the sun is made of H and He gas. If you look at the light that comes from the sun after it has traveled through a prism, you will see that the light gets bent into a rainbow of colors.

Why is the sun made up of hydrogen and helium?

Nuclear fusion. In the sun’s core, gravitational forces create tremendous pressure and temperatures. The temperature of the sun in this layer is about 27 million degrees Fahrenheit (15 million degrees Celsius). Hydrogen atoms are compressed and fuse together, creating helium.

How do scientists know that the sun contains helium atoms when no one has even taken a sample of material from the sun?

How do scientists know that the sun contains helium atoms when no one has even taken a sample of material from the sun? You have looked at emission spectra. Electrons can also absorb energy, forming an absorption spectrum. What would an absorption spectrum look like?

How do scientists know the composition of the sun?

Each element absorbs light at specific wavelengths unique to that atom. When astronomers look at an object’s spectrum, they can determine its composition based on these wavelengths. The most common method astronomers use to determine the composition of stars, planets, and other objects is spectroscopy.

Who discovered that the sun is made of hydrogen?

Cecilia Payne
Cecilia Payne discovered that stars are made largely of the two lightest chemical elements – hydrogen and helium. She made her discovery while in graduate school. At first nobody believed it – scientists were convinced that the sun’s composition was similar to the earth’s.

Why does the sun give off heat and light?

The core of the sun is so hot and there is so much pressure, nuclear fusion takes place: hydrogen is changed to helium. Nuclear fusion creates heat and photons (light). The amount of solar heat and light is enough to light up Earth’s days and keep our planet warm enough to support life.

How does the sun burn without oxygen?

The Sun does not “burn”, like we think of logs in a fire or paper burning. The Sun glows because it is a very big ball of gas, and a process called nuclear fusion is taking place in its core. Hydrogen really doesn’t burn, it fuses, into helium. So no oxygen is required!

How do we know the Sun is mostly composed of hydrogen?

The more atoms of a particular element that exist on the sun’s surface, the more light the atoms absorb and the stronger the spectral lines. Spectral lines thereby can reveal an element’s abundance relative to hydrogen, which is the sun’s main ingredient.

Is the Sun made of hydrogen or helium?

Fortunately, a variety of current and future experiments may finally resolve the matter. Despite the controversy, everyone agrees on the basics: The sun consists mainly of hydrogen and helium, the two lightest elements. It generates energy at its center through nuclear reactions that convert hydrogen into helium.

What is the percentage of hydrogen in the Sun?

The Sun is made up of 70\% hydrogen (H) and 28\% helium (He) atoms. i Other substances make up less than 2\%. Six hundred million tons of hydrogen are converted into 596 million tons of helium in the Sun every second.

Why is there so much hydrogen and helium in the universe?

The abundance of hydrogen and helium helps scientists understand the universal expansion rate. The scientists believe that if the universe had expanded any faster there would have been more stable neutrons and thus more helium; if it had expanded slower however the temperature would have been much hotter resulting…

How do we know what the Sun is made of?

How we know what the sun is made of. Looking closely, you will find some dark bands, or thin lines, where the light is much fainter. This is because some of the light that left the sun was absorbed by atoms (like H and He) in the sun’s atmosphere. Every atom absorbs specific colors of light, depending on its number of protons and electrons.