Question

What is sun made of?
A. 94% hydrogen, 6% helium, 0.16% other materials
B. 94% hydrogen, 6% helium, 0.13% other materials
C. 99% hydrogen, 6% helium, 0.11% other materials
D. 94% hydrogen, 6% helium, 0.11% other materials

Answer 1

Hint:Sun is a celestial body, which is a star. It mostly is composed of hydrogen and helium, as it converts hydrogen into helium via the process of nuclear fusion. Among the options choose the most accurate one.

Complete step by step solution:
The Sun lies in the centre of our solar system and is a G-type main-sequence star which was born approximately 4.6 billion years ago. It is the only cosmic source of energy for life to sustain on Earth.

The Sun is primarily composed of hydrogen and helium and other than these major components oxygen, carbon and nitrogen are also abundantly found in the composition of Sun. Traces of Neon, Sulphur, potassium, sodium, magnesium, silicon, phosphorus, aluminium and iron are also present.

By spectroscopy, it is established that if the percentage taken by the relative numbers of atoms is considered then the Sun is made up of 94% hydrogen and 6% of helium, all the other elements add up to about 0.13% of the Sun’s composition.

If the percentage of elements by the total mass of photosphere is observed, the Sun’s chemical composition is 74.9% of hydrogen and 23.8% of helium with other metals accounting for less than 2% of the mass, carbon contributing 0.3%, neon 0.2%, oxygen roughly 1% and iron adding 0.2%.

Therefore, the correct option is B. i.e., 94% hydrogen, 6% helium, 0.13% other materials.

Additional Information:
Sun is 109 times the diameter of Earth.
Of the total mass of our solar system, the Sun comprises 99.86%.


Note:The Sun was formed by the process of gravitational collapse of the matter of a molecular cloud of a large size. This matter gathered in the centre and became hot and dense and initiated nuclear fusion in its core. Hypothetically, the hydrogen and helium in the Sun were produced by big bang nucleosynthesis in the first 20 minutes of the universe.