If there isn't any oxygen in space, how does the sun burn?
399933
The answer is: the sun doesn't burn.  What you are thinking of is combustion, the process of combining oxygen with something to release energy (fire).  What is happening in the sun is nuclear fusion.  Two hydrogen atoms smack into each other with such force that they join together to make a helium atom.  During this process, some of the mass is turned into energy, which is heat and light.  It has nothing to do with oxygen.
55579
The sun is a giant ball of plasma constantly fusing hydrogen into helium.  It is not 'on fire', so to speak, so the lack of oxygen and the coldness of space don't effect it like a match or something.
924904
Firstly our wastes contains many substances like several kinds of elements for e magnesium, iron, cobalt, etc.. If we send them into space, we will lose the possibility to recycle the wastes and reuse the elements or compounds in them to manufacture other things. However if we want to get rid of them by space, this costs a whole lot of money since for sending 1 g of waste, about nearly hundred times the amount of energy needed to create that waste will be lost to propel the waste into space. So it would be illogical to do that since we would be wasting our precious energy sources, our money and also polluting our earth more by the burning of fuels to propel the rockets into space.
538503
Because the air is less dense the higher the altitude, there are less molecules available to retain heat. Therefore the heat of the sun dissipates more readily.
1010702
Yes, the sun will burnout. It is using hydrogen as a nuclear fusion fuel and will run out of it in about 5 billion years. At that time, the hydrogen in the Sun's core will be gone, the outer layers will expand and the Sun will become a red giant. It will continue burning hydrogen (and hellium) from these outer layers for about 1 billion years. Then all the fuel will be gone and what has left form the sun will collapse to form a white dwarf. The white dwarf won't have fuel to burn, but it will be initially very hot, so it will emit radiation for many millions of years before it cools down.\n\nI believe by that time life forms on Earth will be advanced enough to survive in one way or another, including the ancestors of humans. In fact, life forms will be affected by the Sun much earlier. In a 100 million years, the Sun will become hot enough to accelerate hydrogen molecules in the Earth's atmosphere enough so that they leave the planet. This would eventually lead to the evaporation of the oceans (affecting marine life) and all other water. However, by that time, human ancestors or other life forms should have the knowledge and ability to prevent this from happening (moving Earth further away from the Sun, building a protective shield, etc.)\n\nThank you!
879920
The Sun is mostly hydrogen and helium, but also contains wery small quantities of lots of other elements such as oxygen, magnesium and iron.
931417
This is actually an unsolved question in solar physics.\n\nFirst off, \n- There is no carbon dioxide on the Sun, \n- There is no flame on the Sun\n- There is no fusion in the corona as it's the outermost layer of the sun, so the densities are too low for fusion to occur.\n\nNow, there are some good theories as to why the corona is 1-2 million degrees, but most of them involve waving your hands a lot and repeating the word "magnetic fields".\n\nThe basic idea is that the Sun is made of hot hydrogen gas.  Hot enough, in fact, to ionize that hydrogen and turn it into a plasma.  Now plasmas are electromagnetically charged...they move like a gas, but carry magnetic fields and electric currents...you can almost think of it as a metallic gas.\n\nBecause all this plasma is rotating with quite a good bit of angular momentum, it generates large magnetic fields in the Sun's interior (the details on this are still a bit sketchy, but we think we know how this works).  Now, as the plasma near the surface moves about like a gas would, it carries this magnetic field with it.    The magnetic field lines can get tied up and strengthened...it's a bit like storing energy in a rubber band.  When too much energy is stored, the magnetic field breaks (i.e. the rubber band snaps) and lets loose a solar flare.\n\nThese surface magnetic loops are a huge storage of energy, and form a sort of carpet over the photosphere of the Sun.  Low-density hydrogen plasma can get swept up into them, accelerated to very high temperatures, and get trapped as coronal gas in a magnetic "bottle".
1160653
Space near the earth is actually filled with a gas called the interplanetary medium (see first source). This gas, which is mostly gas coming from the sun, is quite hot, around 100,000 degrees C. But, it's also only 10^-18th the density of sea level air, so it carries very little heat.\n\nAir is relatively thick, so we're used to conduction and convection determining an objects temperature.  There's very little of either in space, so radiation dominates.  The sun's light is about twice as strong in space as it is on earth.  How hot this heats an object depends on the objects shape and color, but it's fair to say that most things will heat up to a few hundred degrees. \n\nBecause there's no air in space, everything looses heat very slowly, like being in a thermos. So, anything that produces heat, like a human body or machinery, will gradually warm up--space suits have built-in coolers to deal with this. \n\nIf you're out of the sunlight and have used up all your internal energy, you eventually cool down to about -25 to +25 C.  Infrared radiation from the earth is what prevents you from getting colder.  If you were also far away from the earth, you'd cool down to something between -240C and -270C.
941083
The sun is largely hydrogen & helium, with a bit of iron & other elements.  The fraction of the sun that's oxygen, however, is minuscule, so you just wouldn't get any appreciable chemical burning.  In order for your question to make any sense or to be possible at all, you'd need to state the chemical composition of the sun and say what percent is oxygen in your hypothetical question.
111381
As the Sun uses its hydrogen feul, the buildup of helium will cause the Sun's luminosity to increase, giving off more heat and radiation to the Earth.  Eventually, the heat will melt the polar caps, increase evaporation of the oceans, and turn the Earth in to a greenhouse.  Water vapors will later escape the Earth and effectively turn the Earth into something like the Venus of today.  At that point, temperatures will already be too high for life to continue.  \n\nAll of this will happen before the Sun even becomes a Red Giant (its hydrogen runs out).  The expansion of the Sun will consume and incinerate Mercury and Venus, and COULD potentially do the same to the Earth.  But, the mass lost that will occur when the Sun becomes a Red Giant will cause the diameter Earth's orbit to expand and thus barely escaping the surface of the Red Giant Sun.\n\nLife will all be incinerated by that point (approximately 7.5 billion years from now).  The only strategy is to migrate to Mars, or some how find a way to transfer Jupiter's gravity to pull the Earth away from the Sun and closer towards Jupiter.
232210
heat coal in an oxygen free atmosphere. without oxygen it will not burn but bond of the carbon and hydrogen atoms will be broken.\n\nCheck out an aquarium store.
1109952
In space you are barbecued!\nYour sun side becomes hot and the shadow side is freezing.\nThe same happens to the moon.
444152
Nature is all about entropy or conservation of energy.  Stars of which Our Sun is one start their life as large balls of Hydrogen gas.  Due to the friction of the untold number of molecules  moving about, heat is developed- just like rubbing Your hands together.  The inside temperature of the Sun is about 2 million degrees.  It takes more energy to maintain 4 atoms of hydrogen than it does for one Helium.  With all the heat in the star's core it is possible for the hydrogens to form a helium by the process of nuclear fusion.  6 hydrogens take part in the reaction but two are recovered so the net result is 4h>1He.  This reaction results in the saving of 0.6% energy which works its way to the surface and radiates out into space.  Within the Sun it is estimated that about 745,000 tons of H are converted every second.  This number varies a bit when one reads the literature, but whatever the actual number is it is huge.
758386
Assuming there is oxygen present, in any direction. Most likely the direction which presents the input of oxygen i believe. Some great pictures on the NASA website linked below. There have been some controlled experiments for combustion done on Space Shuttles.
457185
when the sun dies and runs out of fuel. Then the earth will die because of no photosysthesis.
337972
Mostly Hydrogen.\n\nAt the center of the Sun, where its density reaches up to 150,000 kg/m3 (150 times the density of water on Earth), thermonuclear reactions (nuclear fusion) convert hydrogen into helium, releasing the energy that keeps the Sun in a state of equilibrium. About 8.9 ×1037 protons (hydrogen nuclei) are converted into helium nuclei every second, releasing energy at the matter-energy conversion rate of 4.26 million tonnes per second, 383 yottawatts (383 ×1024 W) or 9.15 ×1010 megatons of TNT per second. The fusion rate in the core is in a self-correcting equilibrium: a slightly higher rate of fusion would cause the core to heat up more and expand slightly against the weight of the outer layers, reducing the fusion rate and correcting the perturbation; and a slightly lower rate would cause the core to shrink slightly, increasing the fusion rate and again reverting it to its present level.\n\nHydrogen 92.1%\nHelium 7.8%\nOxygen 0.061%\nCarbon 0.030%\nNitrogen 0.0084% \nNeon o.0076%\nIron 0.0037%\nSilicon 0.0031%\nMagnesium 0.0024%\nSulfur 0.0015%
133982
The Sun produces energy through a process called "nuclear fusion." This is the same process that happens in a hydrogen bomb. The Sun converts hydrogen into helium, and that conversion process releases energy, mostly in the form of heat. The Sun "burns" about 600-million tons of hydrogen every second.