One explaination I use for stars when I am speaking to lay people is that they are essentially nuclear explosions so large that their own gravity is holding them together. Is this accurate enough in its vagueness, or can anybody give me a more appropriate 'brief' regarding how to explain what a star is?
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A Star to a Layperson
- Thread starter scalyblue
- Start date
I'm layman...
I understand a star is mass of hydrogen and helium compressed to a spherical shape through it's own mass gravity which also causes fusion to occur and photons to be produced, along with heavier elements.
>.> that is what every layman should understand a star is if they actually went to school and paid attention in class...
If they didn't, you might as well just say it's a ball of fire in the sky.
I understand a star is mass of hydrogen and helium compressed to a spherical shape through it's own mass gravity which also causes fusion to occur and photons to be produced, along with heavier elements.
>.> that is what every layman should understand a star is if they actually went to school and paid attention in class...
If they didn't, you might as well just say it's a ball of fire in the sky.
Ok, so I asked my mom...
When I asked her if she knew what a star was she at first said no, but then when I told her the sun was a star she said that no she doesn't and put the moon in the same category... So a star to the uninitiated seems to be a glowing thing in the sky
I tried telling her is the Sun is what you get if you take the earth and turn it all into a flammable gas, like oxygen, and light it on fire, causing an explosion that is held together by gravity... which she didn't understand
Interestingly enough she know that the sun is not a ball of fire in the sky >.>
When I asked her if she knew what a star was she at first said no, but then when I told her the sun was a star she said that no she doesn't and put the moon in the same category... So a star to the uninitiated seems to be a glowing thing in the sky
I tried telling her is the Sun is what you get if you take the earth and turn it all into a flammable gas, like oxygen, and light it on fire, causing an explosion that is held together by gravity... which she didn't understand
Interestingly enough she know that the sun is not a ball of fire in the sky >.>
Marcus
New Member
The problem with using the word "burning" is that it leads to the misconception that gave rise to the YEC argument that the Sun would have "burned" all of its fuel had it been around for billions of years. There's a difference between nuclear fusion and chemical burning, and the different (by orders of magnitude) amont of energy each generates is exactly the explanation for the Sun's ability to generate as much energy as it does for the length of time that it has.
To kids (say age <8) I would consider this as a sound explanation, however as they get older I would try to explain in more detail about fission, as Marcus points out. This requires more time than just a couple of sentences though. But I think it's a good starting point if you talk with someone who are completely ignorant about what a star is, like:Jotto999 said:
"A star is a huge ball of gas burning in outer space, but it's not burning as a regular fire does: it "burns" through the fusion of hydrogen into helium, which results (I had to think for a while not to say 'creates'
) in much more energy coming out." ('higher energy output' is a better sentence, but we're talking to laymen, right?)Then you have to address questions about the hydrogen running out etc., since people have a hard time grasping compressed gas etc. This can be made by trying to explain the sheer volume and mass of the sun, and for how long it has existed (so on and so forth)... Trying to explain the concept of plasma and compressed gas due to the gravity and so on could get complicated though, if you're not experienced in the field.
Btw, does anyone knows what volume the H2-gas in the sun would have at atmospheric pressure? That might make the amount more comprehensible...