Sagittarius A, the first image of the center of your galaxy

JD_KaPow said:

That's exactly what autoignition is. It's when hydrogen will spontaneously combust with oxygen.Sure, but the tree didn't burn or ignite. It was simply atomized.I don't understand. Hydrogen is already a vapor (gas). What do you mean by "vaporized" here? Do you think that when hydrogen reaches its autoignition temperature, it ceases to exist? It does not. If there's something around for it to react with and the temperature is high enough to overcome the activation energy of that reaction, then it will react. If there's nothing for it to react with, it will simply become hotter hydrogen. If it gets hot enough and the pressures are high enough, it will cease to become hydrogen gas (H2) and it will become a plasma of hydrogen atoms. But the hydrogen atoms don't go away.My mistake. I meant "electrolysis," the usual means by which water splitting is done. There are other ways.Light doesn't just "pass through." It is constantly absorbed and re-emitted by what's in the sun, leading to characteristic spectroscopy lines.

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Oz-of-Cowboy-Country said:

Okay so where I'm going wrong at is... I thought plasma was pure energy with no atomic structure. My voice and lightening would be good examples. And this plasma needed an external barrier to contain it's energy in one spot.

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Is there a solid mass at the center of the sun holding all of these gases together? Is there some kind of external electromagnetic barrier holding all of these gases together (force field)? Or is it just the static build up between the gases that are holding all of them together?

Are these gases just present on the outskirts of the sun or do they go all the way to the core?

The core being made up of gases is still a theory to me. No offense to anyone, I'm just saying.

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Oz-of-Cowboy-Country said:

Okay so where I'm going wrong at is... I thought plasma was pure energy with no atomic structure. My voice and lightening would be good examples. And this plasma needed an external barrier to contain it's energy in one spot.

__________________________________________
Is there a solid mass at the center of the sun holding all of these gases together? Is there some kind of external electromagnetic barrier holding all of these gases together (force field)? Or is it just the static build up between the gases that are holding all of them together?

Are these gases just present on the outskirts of the sun or do they go all the way to the core?

The core being made up of gases is still a theory to me. No offense to anyone, I'm just saying.

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JD_KaPow said:

No, plasma is just another phase of matter (separate from solid, liquid, gas).

I really suggest you read up on this stuff, there are a lot of good books out there that cover this material. There's no solid mass at the center of the sun, there's no barrier holding them together, there's no static build up between the gases. The center of the sun is just an incredibly dense plasma of mostly hydrogen, held together by gravitational force of the pure mass of the atoms.

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DallasEast said:

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Oz-of-Cowboy-Country said:

There is always a static build up between gases. How do you think clouds make lightening? Static comes from a combination of radiation and friction. And yes, I know plasms is the 4th state of matter. Plasma is presented as pure electricity.

And that'll be a no on me reading books on the subject. Not doing it.

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nobody said:

I think that was a bit of a copout answer by Tyson at the end. While the geographic poles do not shift, the magnetic ones do and have several times over the Earth's lifetime. While the question was worded poorly, he should have made that distinction.

He clearly implied that there is no pole reversal at all when magnetic pole reversals happen quite often (on a geological time scale).

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