Is the Sun really a ball of fire?

If not, then what are its components that makes it burn and get hot?. If yes then where does the oxygen needed for combustion(that is fire) come from?. Because there is apparently no plant life on the sun that emits oxygen for constant combustion. I would really like to know.

Is the Sun really a ball of fire?
This question is really an Astronomy question.





Yes the sun is constantly "on fire" Though actually, the word "fire" does not do it justice. The sun is in a state of Plasma. The 4th state of matter. At extreme pressures and temperature matter becomes plasma. Extreme nuclear reactions are happening. Many of the complex elements on the periodic table are created within the burning center of a star, such as Uranium and other hvy matter.


Fire as we know it needs oxygen to burn, but in this situation oxygen is not needed. The extreme temperatures and pressures, Hydrogen nuclear reactions fuel a star, the byproducts being the heavier elements.
Reply:No the sun is not a ball of fire in the sense that you use the word fire. Fire on earth is the result of combustion: the combination of oxygen with volatile compounds, releasing heat.





The heat and energy of the sun come from nuclear fusion: the combination of hydrogen nuclei to produce helium, and, to a lesser extent, the combination of helium nuclei to create more massive elements. Fusion reactions give off massive energy which causes the sun to release great amounts of heat, light, and radiation.
Reply:No, not in the conventional sense, in other words it does not burn like wood in a fire place.





The heat is caused by friction and fusion.





place your hands together, rub them back and forth really fast, and you will fill the heat of the palms of your hands generating friction, well the heat of the sun is very similar to that, but on a very much larger scale, so the sun glows red hot, and shares it's energy with us.
Reply:well if it was, why are we allowed to look at fire on a stove but not the sun?
Reply:its a star! 1. sun: noun(often initial capital letter) the star that is the central body of the solar system, around which the planets revolve and from which they receive light and heat: its mean distance from the earth is about 93 million miles (150 million km), its diameter about 864,000 miles (1.4 million km), and its mass about 330,000 times that of the earth; its period of surface rotation is about 26 days at its equator but longer at higher latitudes.
Reply:Sort of its not fire really, its a giant nuclear reaction, hydrogen atoms fuse in the emense heat, to create helium in a process called nuclear fusion. If humans could figure out how to safely harness the powers of nuclear fusion in a power station it would solve a lot of our power related problems that would solve a lot of our water problems, so get your thinking cap on!!
Reply:No the sun is not a ball of fire. It is a ball of plasma. which is like a gass but hotter. it is fueled by Nuclear fusion or fission using hydrogen and then helium
Reply:The sun is very massive and very hot. Its mass comes from the hydrogen of which it is mostly composed, and the heat comes from the fusion of hydrogen into helium. As it was mentioned before, there are some metals in the sun, resulting from the fusion of hydrogen and helium into heavier elements.





To more directly answer your question, the sun is a ball of fire, but the fire does not come from the kind of combustion reactions that we are used to on earth. Normal combustion involves a flammable substance combining with oxygen, producing carbon dioxide, water, and heat. This heat excites the particles in the air to the point that their electrons separate from their nuclei, forming a plasma. In the sun, the plasma forms from the heat that comes from the sun's nuclear fusion.
Reply:not only hydrogen, but hellium and other weak metal elements also.
Reply:Yes it a burning mass of burning hydrogen gas
Reply:The Sun is composed of hydrogen (about 74% of its mass, or 92% of its volume), helium (about 25% of mass, 7% of volume), and trace quantities of other elements. The Sun has a spectral class of G2V. G2 implies that it has a surface temperature of approximately 5,500 K (or approximately 5,315 degrees Celsius / 9,600 Fahrenheit), giving it a white color which, because of atmospheric scattering, appears yellow as seen from the surface of the Earth. This is a subtractive effect, as the preferential scattering of blue photons (causing the sky color) removes enough blue light to leave a residual reddishness that is perceived as yellow. (When low enough in the sky, the Sun appears orange or red, due to this scattering.)





Its spectrum contains lines of ionized and neutral metals as well as very weak hydrogen lines. The V (Roman five) suffix indicates that the Sun, like most stars, is a main sequence star. This means that it generates its energy by nuclear fusion of hydrogen nuclei into helium and is in a state of hydrostatic equilibrium, neither contracting nor expanding over time. There are more than 100 million G2 class stars in our galaxy. Because of logarithmic size distribution, the Sun is actually brighter than 85% of the stars in the galaxy, most of which are red dwarfs.[1]