Question: what are the strongest forces in the sun, and what do they do?? x

Steven Thomson answered on 15 Jun 2015:

The Sun is a pretty cool thing to study if you’re interested in forces. All four fundamental forces are at work in the Sun.

Gravity is the first one you’d notice – it’s what pulls Earth close and keeps our planet orbiting the Sun. It’s what keeps the entire Solar System together, so gravity is the force with the longest range, but it’s a relatively weak force.

The electromagnetic force is a little stronger, and that leads to all kinds of cool things happening in the Sun’s atmosphere (called the ‘corona’). The swirling of electric and magnetic particles in the Sun’s atmosphere leads to solar flares and coronal mass ejections, when particles and radiation explode off the face of the Sun. When these particles hit the Earth, they sometimes cause the aurora! In fact, all of the heat and light from the Sun is transmitted to us by the electromagnetic force, so it also reaches out a long long way.

In the core of the Sun, the two strongest forces are at work: the strong and weak nuclear forces. The nuclear forces are responsible for nuclear fusion and fission, and this is what gives the Sun its’ heat and light! These are the strongest forces in nature, but they’re very short ranged. We don’t feel them from here like we feel gravity, but we feel the heat and light generated by them.