THE SUN'S ENERGY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23687, 20 December 1938, Page 11

THE SUN'S ENERGY

MYSTERY OF THE FUEL A PROFESSOR'S THEORY NEW YORK, Dec. 18. The solution of the mystery of the fuel which supplies the sun with an inexhaustible supply of radiant energy is announced by Professor Hans Bethe, of Cornell University, an exiled German and an ex-student of Lord Rutherford. The element is carbon, which is burned on earth as coal. oil. or gas. It is calculated that 10 million billion tons of coal would be required to generate the heat radiated by the sun for one second. Why, then, do not the sun and stars burn up their substance? Professor Bethe confirms the belief that they utilise vast atomic energy locked up within the nuclei of atoms. His theory of nucleus collisions — the first to fit known facts—is that the carbon nucleus captures a hydrogen nucleus to form a nitrogen nucleus. The latter is again bombarded by hydrogen nuclei, and finally a helium nucleus is produced and the original carbon nucleus regenerated, thus the sun eats its carbon and has it too.