Why does the sun shine? Why does the sun shine for so many years? Why does the sun shine brightly
The Sun is at a distance of 150 million kilometers from the Earth. Despite such a cosmic distance in the literal sense of the word, all vital processes on our planet depend on the Sun.
This celestial body is the source of light and heat on Earth.
What is the Sun?
According to its structure, it is a huge gas ball, inside and on the surface of which extremely high temperatures have been maintained for billions of years. The sun is constantly converting hydrogen into helium.
Scientists call this process a thermonuclear reaction. Hydrogen makes up 74% of the mass of the solar core, helium - 25% of this mass. When one chemical element is converted into another, hydrogen particles are combined into heavier particles, and at the same time a large amount of energy is released in the form of heat and light.
How does a thermonuclear reaction take place?
Due to the high temperature, the particles of gases on the Sun - the nuclei of atoms and free electrons - move at a crazy speed. In every nucleus of an atom there are particles called protons and neutrons. Protons have a positive electrical charge, while neutrons have no charge. 
Atoms of various elements are distinguished from each other by the number of protons and neutrons, which serve as a kind of "building blocks" for construction. Each nucleus of a hydrogen atom contains one proton, while a helium atom contains two protons and two neutrons.
When four hydrogen nuclei fuse together, they form one helium nucleus, photons, and other small particles. It is photons that represent light that scatters in all directions.
According to scientists, about four million tons of matter is converted into radiant energy every second in the solar core. This energy is dissipated in space and reaches the Earth.
It is worth noting that near the solar core the temperature is about 14 million degrees, and the radiation power reaching our planet is approximately 1000 watts per square meter of surface.
Why doesn't the sun get as warm in winter as it does in summer?
The effectiveness of the impact of sunlight on the Earth depends on how long the daylight hours last, what is the state of the atmosphere and at what angle the sun's rays fall on the Earth. The heat capacity of the earth's surface is also important. 
In summer, the Sun rises high, its rays fall almost vertically on the Earth, and heating occurs faster. In winter, the Sun is low on the horizon, its rays pass tangentially, and the heat on the Earth is felt much weaker.
In winter, the rays of the Sun have to penetrate through a denser layer of the atmosphere, and this significantly slows down the process of heating the earth's surface.
Hot August and harsh February
The angle of inclination of the rays of the sun and the warming of the Earth is also connected with the fact that August in the middle latitudes becomes the extremely hot month of summer, and February the most severe month of winter. Water and earth do not heat up instantly, but retain the accumulated heat. In June and July, the Sun rises above the Earth to its maximum height, and heat penetrates deeply into the surface.
The accumulated heat of June and July is preserved, plus the heat of August is added to it. The reverse process occurs in a similar way: the ground that has cooled down in December and January has an extremely low temperature in February.
Many periodically ask the question: what will happen when the sun goes out? Scientists answer: in the near future, such a turn should not be feared. The sun can go out only after it has spent all the hydrogen available on it, and the process of its transformation into helium stops. 
But over the entire existence of the solar system, less than half of the hydrogen available on the Sun has turned into helium. So, the Sun will shine and warm for a very long time.
The fact that without the Sun life on Earth would not exist, people understood a long time ago, because he was exalted, he was worshiped, and celebrating the day of the Sun, they often made human sacrifices. They watched him and, creating observatories, solved such seemingly simple questions about why the Sun shines during the day, what is the nature of the luminary, when the Sun sets, where does it rise, what objects are around the Sun, and planned their activities on the basis of the received data.
Scientists had no idea that on the only star in the solar system there are seasons that are very reminiscent of the "rainy season" and "dry season". The activity of the Sun alternately increases in the northern and southern hemispheres, lasts eleven months, and decreases for the same amount of time. Along with the eleven-year cycle of its activity, the life of earthlings directly depends, since at this time powerful magnetic fields are ejected from the bowels of the star, causing solar disturbances that are dangerous for the planet.
It may surprise some to learn that the Sun is not a planet. The sun is a huge, luminous ball of gases, inside which thermonuclear reactions are constantly taking place, releasing energy, giving light and heat. It is interesting that such a star does not exist in the solar system, and therefore it attracts to itself all smaller objects that are in its gravitational zone, as a result of which they begin to rotate around the Sun along a trajectory.
Naturally, in space, the solar system is not located on its own, but is part of the Milky Way, a galaxy that is a huge star system. From the center of the Milky Way, the Sun is separated by 26 thousand light years, so the movement of the Sun around it is one revolution in 200 million years. But the star turns around its axis in a month - and then, these data are approximate: it is a plasma ball, the components of which rotate at different speeds, and therefore it is difficult to say exactly how much time it takes to complete a revolution. So, for example, in the equator region this happens in 25 days, at the poles - 11 days more.
Of all the stars known today, our Luminary is in fourth place in terms of brightness (when a star shows solar activity, it shines brighter than when it subsides). By itself, this huge gaseous ball is white, but due to the fact that our atmosphere absorbs short-spectrum waves and the Sun's ray is scattered near the Earth's surface, the Sun's light becomes yellowish, and the white color can only be seen on a clear, fine day against the background blue sky.
Being the only star in the solar system, the Sun is also the only source of its light (not counting the very distant stars). Despite the fact that the Sun and Moon are the largest and brightest objects in the sky of our planet, the difference between them is huge. While the Sun itself emits light, the Earth's satellite, being an absolutely dark object, simply reflects it (we can also say that we also see the Sun at night, when the Moon illuminated by it is in the sky).
The sun shone - a young star, its age, according to scientists, is more than four and a half billion years. Therefore, it refers to a third generation star, which was formed from the remains of pre-existing stars. It is rightfully considered the largest object in the solar system, since its weight is 743 times the mass of all the planets revolving around the sun (our planet is 333 thousand times lighter than the sun and 109 times smaller than it).
Atmosphere of the Sun
Since the temperature indicators of the upper layers of the Sun exceed 6 thousand degrees Celsius, it is not a solid body: at such a high temperature, any stone or metal is transformed into gas. Scientists have come to such conclusions recently, because earlier astronomers suggested that the light and heat emitted by the star are the result of combustion.
The more astronomers watched the Sun, the clearer it became: its surface has been heated to the limit for several billion years, and nothing can burn for so long. According to one of the modern hypotheses, the same processes take place inside the Sun as in an atomic bomb - matter is converted into energy, and as a result of thermonuclear reactions, hydrogen (its share in the composition of the star is about 73.5%) is transformed into helium (almost 25%) .
Rumors that the Sun on Earth will go out sooner or later are not unfounded: the amount of hydrogen in the core is not unlimited. As it burns, the outer layer of the star will expand, while the core, on the contrary, will decrease, as a result of which the life of the Sun will end, and it will be transformed into a nebula. This process will start soon. According to scientists, this will happen no earlier than in five to six billion years.
As for the internal structure, since the star is a gaseous ball, it is united with the planet only by the presence of a core.
Core
It is here that all thermonuclear reactions take place, generating heat and energy, which, bypassing all subsequent layers of the Sun, leave it in the form of sunlight and kinetic energy. The solar core extends from the center of the sun to a distance of 173,000 km (approximately 0.2 solar radii). It is interesting that in the core the star rotates around its axis much faster than in the upper layers.
Radiant transfer zone
Photons leaving the nucleus in the radiative transfer zone collide with plasma particles (ionized gas formed from neutral atoms and charged particles, ions and electrons) and exchange energy with them. There are so many collisions that a photon sometimes takes about a million years to pass this layer, and this despite the fact that the density of the plasma and its temperature indicators at the outer boundary decrease.
tachocline
Between the radiative transfer zone and the convective zone there is a very thin layer where the formation of a magnetic field occurs - the electromagnetic field lines of force are pulled out by plasma flows, increasing its intensity. There is every reason to believe that here the plasma significantly changes its structure.
convective zone
Near the solar surface, the temperature and density of matter becomes insufficient for the energy of the Sun to be transferred only with the help of reradiation. Therefore, here the plasma begins to rotate, forming vortices, transferring energy to the surface, while the closer to the outer edge of the zone, the more it cools, and the gas density decreases. At the same time, the particles of the photosphere located above it, cooled on the surface, go into the convective zone.
Photosphere
The photosphere is called the brightest part of the Sun, which can be seen from the Earth in the form of the solar surface (it is called so conventionally, since a body consisting of gas does not have a surface, therefore it is referred to as part of the atmosphere).
Compared with the radius of a star (700 thousand km), the photosphere is a very thin layer with a thickness of 100 to 400 km.
It is here that during the manifestation of solar activity, the release of light, kinetic and thermal energy occurs. Since the temperature of the plasma in the photosphere is lower than in other places, and there is strong magnetic radiation, sunspots are formed in it, giving rise to the well-known phenomenon as solar flares.
Although solar flares are short-lived, an extremely large amount of energy is released during this period. And it manifests itself in the form of charged particles, ultraviolet, optical, X-ray or gamma radiation, as well as plasma flows (on our planet they cause magnetic storms that negatively affect people's health).
The gas in this part of the star is relatively rarefied and rotates very unevenly: its revolution around the equator is 24 days, at the poles - thirty. In the upper layers of the photosphere, minimum temperature indicators were recorded, due to which out of 10 thousand hydrogen atoms only one has a charged ion (despite this, even in this region the plasma is quite ionized).
Chromosphere
The chromosphere is called the upper shell of the Sun with a thickness of 2 thousand km. In this layer, the temperature rises sharply, and hydrogen and other substances begin to actively ionize. The density of this part of the Sun is usually low, and therefore it is difficult to distinguish from the Earth, and it can be seen only in the event of an eclipse of the Sun, when the Moon covers the brighter layer of the photosphere (the chromosphere glows red at this time).
Crown
The corona is the last outer, very hot shell of the Sun, which is visible from our planet during a total solar eclipse: it resembles a radiant halo. At other times, it is impossible to see it because of the very low density and brightness.
It consists of prominences, hot gas fountains up to 40,000 km high, and energy eruptions that go into space at great speed, forming a solar wind consisting of a stream of charged particles. It is interesting that many natural phenomena of our planet are associated with the solar wind, for example, the northern lights. It should be noted that the solar wind itself is extremely dangerous, and if our planet was not protected by the atmosphere, then it would destroy all life.
earth year
Our planet moves around the Sun at a speed of about 30 km / s and the period of its complete revolution is one year (the length of the orbit is more than 930 million km). At the point where the solar disk is closest to the Earth, our planet is separated from the star by 147 million km, and at the most distant point - 152 million km.
The “motion of the Sun” seen from the Earth changes throughout the whole year, and its trajectory resembles a figure eight stretched along the Earth’s axis from north to south with a slope of forty-seven degrees.
This happens due to the fact that the angle of deviation of the Earth's axis from the perpendicular to the plane of the orbit is about 23.5 degrees, and since our planet revolves around the Sun, the rays of the Sun daily and hourly (not counting the equator, where day is equal to night) change the angle of their fall at the same point.
In the summer in the northern hemisphere, our planet is tilted towards the Sun, and therefore the rays of the Sun illuminate the earth's surface as intensely as possible. But in winter, since the path of the solar disk through the sky is very low, the Sun's ray falls on our planet at a steeper angle, and therefore the earth warms up weakly.
The average temperature is set when autumn or spring arrives and the Sun is at the same distance from the poles. At this time, nights and days have approximately the same duration - and climatic conditions are created on Earth, which are a transitional stage between winter and summer.
Such changes begin to take place even in winter, after the winter solstice, when the trajectory of the Sun's movement across the sky changes, and it begins to rise.
Therefore, when spring comes, the Sun approaches the day of the vernal equinox, the length of day and night becomes the same. In the summer, June 21, on the day of the summer solstice, the solar disk reaches its highest point above the horizon.
earth day
If you look at the sky from the point of view of an earthling in search of an answer to the question of why the Sun shines during the day and where it rises, then you can soon make sure that the Sun rises in the east, and its setting can be seen in the west.
This happens due to the fact that our planet not only moves around the Sun, but also rotates around its axis, making a complete revolution in 24 hours. If you look at the Earth from space, you can see that it, like most of the planets of the Sun, turns counterclockwise, from west to east. Standing on Earth and watching where the Sun appears in the morning, everything is seen in a mirror image, and therefore the Sun rises in the east.
At the same time, an interesting picture is observed: a person, observing where the Sun is, standing on one point, moves along with the Earth in an easterly direction. At the same time, the parts of the planet that are located in the western side, one after another, gradually begin to illuminate the light of the Sun. So. for example, sunrise on the east coast of the United States can be seen up to three hours before the sun rises on the west coast.
The sun in the life of the earth
The Sun and the Earth are so connected with each other that the role of the largest star in the sky can hardly be overestimated. First of all, our planet formed around the Sun and life appeared. Also, the energy of the Sun warms the Earth, the ray of the Sun illuminates it, forming a climate, cooling it at night, and after the Sun rises, it warms it again. What can I say, even the air with its help acquired the properties necessary for life (if not a ray of the Sun, it would be a liquid ocean of nitrogen surrounding blocks of ice and frozen land).
The Sun and Moon, being the largest objects in the sky, actively interacting with each other, not only illuminate the Earth, but also directly affect the movement of our planet - a vivid example of this action is the ebbs and flows. They are influenced by the Moon, the Sun in this process is on the sidelines, but without its influence it also cannot do.
The sun and the moon, the earth and the sun, air and water flows, the biomass that surrounds us are available, constantly renewable energy raw materials that can be easily used (it lies on the surface, it does not need to be extracted from the bowels of the planet, it does not form radioactive and toxic waste ).
To draw public attention to the possibility of using renewable energy sources, since the mid-90s. last century, it was decided to celebrate the International Day of the Sun. Thus, every year, on May 3, on the day of the Sun, seminars, exhibitions, conferences are held throughout Europe aimed at showing people how to use the ray of the luminary for good, how to determine the time when the sunset or sunrise occurs.
For example, on the day of the Sun, you can visit special multimedia programs, see huge areas of magnetic disturbances and various manifestations of solar activity through a telescope. On the day of the Sun, you can look at various physical experiments and demonstrations that clearly demonstrate how powerful a source of energy our Luminary is. Often on the Day of the Sun, visitors get the opportunity to create a sundial and test it in action.
Stars radiate huge amounts of heat and light for many billions of years, which requires a huge amount of fuel consumption. Until the twentieth century, no one could imagine what kind of fuel it was. The biggest problem in physics was the big question - where do stars get their energy from? All we could do was look up into the sky and realize that there was a huge “hole” in our knowledge. To understand the secret of the stars, a new engine of discovery was needed.
Helium was needed to unlock the secret. Albert Einstein's theory proved that stars can get energy from within atoms. The secret of the stars is Einstein's equation, which is the formula E \u003d ms 2. In a sense, the number of atoms that make up our body is concentrated energy, compressed energy, energy compressed into atoms (particles of cosmic dust) that make up our universe. Einstein proved that this energy could be released by colliding two atoms. This process is called thermonuclear fusion, it is this force that feeds the stars.
Imagine, but the physical properties of a small, subatomic particle determine the structure of stars. Thanks to Einstein's theory, we have learned how to release this energy inside the atom. Now scientists are trying to simulate the source of stellar energy in order to gain power over the power of fusion in the laboratory.
Inside the walls of the laboratory, near Oxford in England, is the machine that Andrew Kirk and his team are turning into a "star" laboratory. This installation is called Tokamak. It's basically a big magnetic bottle that holds a very hot plasma that can simulate conditions like the inside of a star.
Inside the Tokamak, hydrogen atoms oppose each other. To push the atoms against each other, the tokamak heats them up to 166 million degrees, at this temperature the atoms move so fast that they cannot avoid colliding with each other. Heating is a movement, the movement of heated particles is enough to overcome the repulsive force. Traveling at thousands of kilometers per second, these hydrogen atoms crash into each other and combine to form a new chemical element, helium, and a small amount of pure energy.
Hydrogen weighs a little more than helium, in the process of combustion the mass is lost, the lost mass is converted into energy. A tokamak can support the fusion of a fraction of a second, but in the interior of a star, the fusion of nuclei does not stop for billions of years, the reason is simple - the size of the star.
A star lives by gravity. That's why the stars are big, huge. To compress a star, you need a huge force of attraction in order to release an incredible amount of energy, enough for thermonuclear fusion. This is the secret of the stars, this is why they shine.
Synthesis in the core of the sun's star generates every second the power that would be enough for a billion nuclear bombs. A star is a giant hydrogen bomb. Why doesn't it just shatter into pieces then? The fact is that gravity compresses the outer layers of the star. Gravity and synthesis are waging a grand war, the attraction of which wants to crush the star and the fusion energy that wants to blow the star apart from the inside, this conflict and this balance create a star.
This is a struggle for power that continues throughout the life of a star. It is these fights on the stars that create the light and each ray of the stellar journey makes an incredible journey, the light travels 1080 million kilometers per hour. In one second, a beam of light can circle the earth seven times, nothing in the universe moves so fast.
Since most stars are very far away, light travels hundreds, thousands, millions and even billions of years to reach us. When the Hubble orbiting space station peers into the far corners of our universe, it sees light that has traveled for billions of years. The light of the Etequilia star that we see today set off on its journey - 8,000 years ago, the light of Betelgeuse has been on its way since Columbus discovered America - 500 years ago. Even the light of the Sun flies to us for as long as 8 minutes.
When the sun synthesizes helium from hydrogen, a particle of light, a photon, is produced. This beam of light has a long and difficult journey to the surface of the Sun. The whole star prevents it, when a photon appears it crashes into another atom, another proton, another neutron, it doesn't matter, it is absorbed, then reflected in a different direction and moving so chaotically inside the Sun, it has to break out.
The photon will have to rush wildly, crash into the atoms of the gas billions of times and desperately rush out. It's funny, in order to get out of the core of the Sun, it takes a photon thousands of years and only 8 minutes to fly from the surface of the Sun to the Earth. Photons are sources of heat and light, thanks to which diverse and amazing life is supported on our planet Earth!
Despite the simple wording of the question “Why does the Sun shine?” the answer to it requires some base of physical knowledge and to present it in one sentence is a difficult task. We will try to solve it towards the end of the article, which we will begin with a historical background.
Story
One of the first who tried to approach the explanation of the nature of the Sun from a scientific point of view was the ancient Greek astronomer and mathematician Anaxagoras, according to whom the Sun is a hot metal ball. For this, the philosopher was imprisoned. Before the instrumental study of the Sun began in the 17th century, there was still a lot of speculation about the nature of sunlight, down to the ever-burning forests on the surface.
Since the 17th century, scientists have discovered such a phenomenon as sunspots, it becomes possible to calculate the period of rotation of the Sun. It becomes clear that our star is a kind of physical body with a complex structure. In the 19th century, spectroscopy arose, with the help of which it was possible to decompose the sun's ray into its component colors. Thus, thanks to the absorption lines, Fraunhofer manages to detect a new chemical element that is part of the star - helium.
In the middle of the 19th century, scientists were already trying to describe the glow of the Sun with more complex scientific hypotheses. So Robert Mayer suggested that the star is heated by the bombardment of meteorites. Somewhat later, in 1853, a more plausible idea arose of the so-called "Kelvin-Helmholtz mechanism", according to which the Sun was heated due to gravitational contraction. However, in this case, the age of the luminary would be much less than in reality, which contradicted some geological studies.
Why does the sun shine
The British physicist Ernest Rutherford was the first to come up with the correct answer to this question, who suggested that radioactive decay occurs in the Sun and that it is the source of the star's energy. Later, in 1920, the English astrophysicist Arthur Eddington developed Rutherford's idea, arguing that a thermonuclear fusion reaction can proceed in the core of the Sun under the influence of the internal pressure of the Sun's own mass. After 10 years, the main fusion reactions were calculated, generating the observed amount of energy.
Briefly, the thermonuclear reaction due to which the Sun shines can be described as the fusion of protons (hydrogen nuclei) into a helium-4 nucleus. Since the helium-4 nucleus has a smaller mass than the hydrogen nucleus, the energy difference (free energy) is emitted in the form of photons - particles that are electromagnetic radiation.
thermonuclear reaction
Proton-proton thermonuclear fusion reactions occurring inside stars with a mass of the Sun or less can be divided into three chains: ppI, ppII, ppIII. Of these, ppl accounts for more than 84% of the solar energy. The proton-proton reaction consists of three cycles, where the role of the first is the interaction of two protons (two hydrogen nuclei). With enough energy to overcome the Coulomb barrier, two protons fuse to form a deuteron. Since the deuteron nucleus, consisting of two protons, has less mass than two individual protons, free energy is formed, due to which a positron and an electron neutrino are created, which are emitted from the region where the reaction took place.
Further, due to the interaction of a deuteron and another proton, helium-3 is formed with the release of energy in the form of electromagnetic radiation. The further stages of the reaction can be clearly seen in the diagram below.
Reactions inside the sun
In addition to the proton-proton thermonuclear fusion reaction, a small contribution to the energy released by the Sun is made by a reaction of the proton-electron-proton type 0.23%.
Thus, summarizing the above, the Sun emits electromagnetic waves of various frequencies, including in the visible light region, which are formed by particles born as a result of the released energy during the proton-proton (proton-electron-proton) thermonuclear fusion reaction.
The fourth state of matter.
Part six. Why does the sun shine
Why does the sun shine? The same exact answer is known today to this question. The sun shines because in its depths, as a result of a thermonuclear reaction of the transformation of 4 protons (nuclei of hydrogen atoms) into one helium nucleus, free energy remains (because the mass of the helium nucleus is less than the mass of four protons), which is emitted in the form of photons. Photons in the visible range - this is the sunlight that we see.
And now let's reason and imagine the path that scientists have traveled. And at the same time, let's think about what will happen when hydrogen is completely burned out on the Sun? Will it definitely go out? We advise you to read the article to the end - a very interesting assumption is made there.
Let's assume that the Sun burns the most calorific of all types of fuel - the purest carbon, which burns whole, without any ash. Let's do a simple calculation. It is known how much heat this “bonfire” sends to the Earth. The sun is a ball, so it radiates heat evenly in all directions. Knowing the size of the Earth and the Sun, it is easy to calculate that in order to maintain the flow of heat from the Sun, about 12 billion tons of coal must burn in it every second! The figure is huge on the earth's scale, but for the Sun, which is more than three hundred thousand times heavier than the Earth, this amount of coal is small. And yet all that coal in the sun would have to burn out in just six thousand years. But the data of many sciences - geology, biology, etc. - irrefutably testify that the bright Sun has been heating and illuminating our planet for at least several billion years.
The notion that the Sun burns with coal had to be rejected. But perhaps there are chemical reactions in which even more heat is released than when coal is burned? Let's assume they exist. But even these reactions could extend the life of the Sun by a thousand, two thousand years, even twice, but no more.
But if the Sun is not able to provide itself with fuel for any long time, then, perhaps, outer space does this from the outside? It has been suggested that meteorites are continuously falling on the Sun. We have already said that when meteorites approach the Earth, due to braking in the Earth's atmosphere, they often burn out completely, heating the air on their way. Why not assume that there is no atmosphere around the Sun, that the deceleration of meteorites occurs directly in the solar matter, and it is heated to a high temperature?
Let's go back to the calculations. How many meteorites must fall on the Sun to keep it burning for a long time? The calculation gives an absolutely incredible figure: even if the weight of all the meteorites that fell on the Sun is equal to the weight of the Sun itself, it would still shine for only about a million years.
But, perhaps, once such a huge number of meteorites nevertheless fell on the Sun, heated it to a huge temperature, and now the Sun is slowly cooling down? Nothing like this! There is a lot of evidence that the Sun shone and warmed a billion, and a million, and a thousand years ago, as it does today. So, the second assumption also fails.
The amazing constancy of solar activity also buried the third, most tempting assumption about the cause of the "burning" of the Sun. It came down to the following. According to the law of universal gravitation, all bodies approach each other. The Earth is attracted by the Sun and moves around it. The stone is attracted by the Earth and falls on it if it is released from the hands.
Let's imagine that the Sun is a huge vessel with gas. The molecules of this gas, subject to the action of mutual attraction, despite the collisions that throw them away from each other, should gradually attract each other and approach each other. The sun as a whole would then shrink, the pressure of the gas in it would increase, and this would lead to an increase in temperature and the release of heat.
If we consider that in 100 years the diameter of the Sun is reduced by only a few kilometers, then this phenomenon could fully explain the radiation of the Sun. However, such a slow contraction cannot be detected with the help of astronomical instruments.
But there is a “device” that works for a much longer time. This instrument is the Earth itself. During its existence, the Sun would have to shrink tenfold: from sizes many times larger than the length of the entire solar system to modern ones. Such compression would certainly affect the . Nothing like this, however, the history of the Earth knows. She is aware of major geological catastrophes in which the highest mountains perished, new oceans, entire continents were born, but all this can be fully explained by the activity of the Earth itself, and not the Sun.
So, all three mentioned hypotheses about the causes of the "burning" of the Sun turned out to be untenable. Science, which was able to explain many of the most complex phenomena on Earth, for a very long time lowered its hands before the mystery of the activity of the Sun. Now it has become clear that the solution to this riddle must be sought not in the depths of space, but in the depths of the Sun.
And here the science of the super-large - astronomy - came to the aid of the science of the super-small - the physics of the atomic nucleus.
