Welcome to Gaia! ::

Sorry. I was out of town for a few days. But I'm back now.

Welcome back all. Tomorrow I'll have a new question to pose and hopefully a brief idea on the contest.

That's a rather easy question.

The sun is ~70% hydrogen 28% helium and 2% everything else (by mass).

This is determined via spectroscopy (ie, looking at absorption lines in the spectra). Go here for an extremely high resolution picture of said spectra.

What do you mean "when will the sun burst out"? Burst as in with a solar flare? Turn into a read giant?

If it's the first, such things are extremely hard to predict. Solar flares tend to occur around the high point of stellar activity in the 11 year cycle (the low was a year or two ago). But this isn't always true. In 2003, there were a series of extremely large flares which was near the time of minimum as well.

If you're talking about the second, the sun has ~5 billion years left of main sequence lifetime.

Yup VoijaRisa's got it.

Just to add a little detail.

Chemical make up
Hydrogen 73.46 %
Helium 24.85 %
Oxygen 0.77 %
Carbon 0.29 %
Iron 0.16 %
Sulphur 0.12 %
Neon 0.12 %
Nitrogen 0.09 %
Silicon 0.07 %
Magnesium 0.05 %

the Carbon Oxygen and Nitrogen is somewhat significant since it can act as a catalyst for some of the nuclear reactions in the sun (pretty insignificant for the sun but important for some stars) http://csep10.phys.utk.edu/astr162/lect/energy/cno.html

"The Sun does not have enough mass to explode as a supernova. Instead, in 4-5 billion years, it will enter a red giant phase, its outer layers expanding as the hydrogen fuel in the core is consumed and the core contracts and heats up. Helium fusion will begin when the core temperature reaches around 100 MK, and will produce carbon and oxygen. While it is likely that the expansion of the outer layers of the Sun will reach the current position of Earth's orbit, recent research suggests that mass lost from the Sun earlier in its red giant phase will cause the Earth's orbit to move further out, preventing it from being engulfed. However, Earth's water will be boiled away and most of its atmosphere will escape into space.
Following the red giant phase, intense thermal pulsations will cause the Sun to throw off its outer layers, forming a planetary nebula. The only object that will remain after the outer layers are ejected is the extremely hot stellar core, which will slowly cool and fade as a white dwarf over many billions of years. This stellar evolution scenario is typical of low- to medium-mass stars" (from wikipedia article on the Sun and backed up by my old astrophysics textbook)

What I want to know is...
if it's possible for a solar maximum to take out our magnetic field?

I think last maximum was in 1989 which caused strong geomagnetic storm surges throughout the world...

I was just wondering if a solar maximun directed straight twards us, could cause major damage to the magnetic fields which protect us from such brusts from the sun?

I see, but what if it happend like twice in a row..?
Is that possible?

I don't know about whether or not it has one but it does still have activity beneath the surface I believe. (Don't quote me on that Planetary isn't my strong point)

It can but our core would have to stop spinning. Good luck stopping that.

They are reversing as far as I know but I don't know how. (Like I said planetary isn't my suit) The problem is that no one has seen such a thing. They tell stories of when the atom bomb was created they didn't know what all the effects of it could be. We haven't seen it so for all we think we don't know.

It would have a major impact if it disappeared but as far as I know its not going to disappear and the reappear but move. I don't know the specifics but I don't think its going to disappear.