What is age of solar system?
Question:
the source of solar energy was a puzzle.
Assuming that all energy radiated by the Sun
comes from its contraction under its own gravity,
estimate the age of solar system.
Physical properties of the Sun are listed here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/sun...
Answer:
Calculate the gravitational self-energy of a sphere of solar mass and radius. Assume uniform density (not correct, but good enough for a first order approximation).
ie integrate G (density)^2 (volume of a sphere of radius r) (volume of a shell of radius r and width dr) / r -- from r equals zero to the sun's radius
Divide that by the power radiated by the sun to get a time.
The time isn't very long--a very perplexing problem before they figured out solar fusion.
Bekki B is right, before we had more complete ideas about the internal processes of the sun, this was a mystery. This makes your question, well, sort of miss the point.
There are a number of cyclical processes within the sun that recycle the elements, so that they don't get "used up". To get the age of the sun, you'd need to look at the abundances of all the elements, and the NET reaction-rates of accumulation for these processes. Then derive an appropriate equation, plug in your numbers, and then solve for the age.
To get a better feel for this, look at a modern college "101-level" Astronomy textbook. That would be a great help to you!
Good Luck
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