Re:CNO neutrinos from the Sun are finally detected
by mnw21cam on Friday August 07, 2020 @09:56AM
(#24081833)
There's a negative feedback loop there. That is, a star of a certain mass needs a certain amount of energy production in order to keep it from collapsing, and that amount of energy production is automatically achieved, because if it were too low then the star would collapse a bit, and increase it.
Therefore, the rate of energy production isn't a consequence of the temperature. The rate of energy production is regulated, so effectively the temperature is a consequence of the required energy production instead.
Re:CNO neutrinos from the Sun are finally detected
by xattt on Friday August 07, 2020 @10:55AM
(#24082519)
Would this be one hypothesis for the solar sunspot cycle?
Re:CNO neutrinos from the Sun are finally detected
by bananabreakfast on Friday August 07, 2020 @02:40PM
(#24085127)
No, the balance of gravity to outward radiation pressure from the core is static in nearly all stars that aren't some of the largest we have observed.
The solar sunspot cycle is caused by the periodic inversion of the polarity of the sun's magnetic field.
Using some hand-wavy arguments you could say that fusion pauses a star's collapse, so the more massive a star is, the more energy generation it needs to stay in equilibrium during this pause.