Oxygen on the Sun?

[fire vs. water]

I don't know if this question really fits anywhere in the forum, so I posted it here. Fire must have oxygen, fuel, and heat to burn, correct?

How come there is fire on the sun? Is there oxygen there? If so, does anybody know where it comes from, or how it exists there if there's no atmosphere?

[Arkangel]

Where to start...........?

Fire is simply an exothermic reaction between various chemicals, most commonly in day to day life, a fuel and oxygen in some form.

But under extreme circumstances of pressure, heat and so on, other exothermic reactions can take place. Where's the "oxidiser" in a Zn/S rocket?

On the sun, there is a bucketload of heat, created by ongoing nuclear fission(?) which would release enough energy to make it look like there was perpetual fire, even if there wasn't any actual chemical reaction taking place - I'm not saying that ther isn't, it's just that there doesn't need to be.

(fusion - yes, I meant fusion SD and we were probably posting at the same time as each other, but I hit the button first)

[Skean Dhu]

The " fire " on the sun is more or less plasma produced by the constant fusion reaction going on between the hydrogen and helium isotopes that mainly make up the sun. Thats the jist of it anyways, I'm sure its more complicated than I make it seem

::EDIT::
Arkangel seems to have beat me to it, wonder why I didn't see his post

[Dave Angel]

Ahh drat, beaten to the plasma explanation!

I think the flames of a candle or a bunsen burner etc are energized, ionized gases too so I guess you could get away with calling the flames on the sun fire by the same description after all!

[Cyclonite]

Oxygen exists only on larger stars, stars start using H as fuel when the H runs low then they shrink until they get to a point when He will burn (the He is formed from the H undergoing fusion) then from He the star will keep going until it has enough pressure and heat to make that element undergo fusion. The largest stars stop with Fe, most won't see the point of oxygen fusion though. I hope this makes things clear....

[VX]

lets not forget that chemical reactions can occure on the sun as well, and at such high temperatures, any elements formed, o for example will react with something else almost imediatly (most probably) Hydrogen.

However it is still able to undergo fusion in just that same way as the individualy atom, as would the two hydrogens it was bonded to.

[vulture]

lets not forget that chemical reactions can occure on the sun as well, and at such high temperatures, any elements formed, o for example will react with something else almost imediatly (most probably) Hydrogen.

Not really. At those temperatures all elements are in their ionized state, that's the main difference between plasma and gas. Elements will combine shortly, but their halflife in the soup is insignificant.

[nbk2000]

Since when did we become an astrophysics forum?