Elasticsearch: "ERROR: elasticsearch exited unexpectedly" when trying to start elasticsearch

I am trying to start elasticsearch by running .bin/elasticsearch from the elasticsearch directory. However, I keep getting the error message ERROR: Elasticsearch exited unexpectedly. What could be the possible solution to this?

I installed Elasticsearch from archives on linux using the commands below.

wget https://artifacts.elastic.co/downloads/elasticsearch/elasticsearch-8.3.3-linux-x86_64.tar.gz

wget https://artifacts.elastic.co/downloads/elasticsearch/elasticsearch-8.3.3-linux-x86_64.tar.gz.sha512

shasum -a 512 -c elasticsearch-8.3.3-linux-x86_64.tar.gz.sha512 

tar -xzf elasticsearch-8.3.3-linux-x86_64.tar.gz

cd elasticsearch-8.3.3/ 

Below is are more error logs I got from the elasticsearch.log file

[2022-08-17T00:32:36,417][ERROR][o.e.b.Bootstrap          ] [blessed-Lenovo-ideapad-110-15IBR] Exception
java.lang.RuntimeException: can not run elasticsearch as root
    at org.elasticsearch.bootstrap.Bootstrap.initializeNatives(Bootstrap.java:99) ~[elasticsearch-8.3.3.jar:?]
    at org.elasticsearch.bootstrap.Bootstrap.setup(Bootstrap.java:179) ~[elasticsearch-8.3.3.jar:?]
    at org.elasticsearch.bootstrap.Bootstrap.init(Bootstrap.java:333) [elasticsearch-8.3.3.jar:?]
    at org.elasticsearch.bootstrap.Elasticsearch.init(Elasticsearch.java:224) [elasticsearch-8.3.3.jar:?]
    at org.elasticsearch.bootstrap.Elasticsearch.main(Elasticsearch.java:67) [elasticsearch-8.3.3.jar:?]
[2022-08-17T00:32:36,855][ERROR][o.e.b.Elasticsearch      ] [blessed-Lenovo-ideapad-110-15IBR] fatal exception while booting Elasticsearch
org.elasticsearch.bootstrap.StartupException: java.lang.RuntimeException: can not run elasticsearch as root
    at org.elasticsearch.bootstrap.Elasticsearch.init(Elasticsearch.java:228) [elasticsearch-8.3.3.jar:?]
    at org.elasticsearch.bootstrap.Elasticsearch.main(Elasticsearch.java:67) [elasticsearch-8.3.3.jar:?]
Caused by: java.lang.RuntimeException: can not run elasticsearch as root
    at org.elasticsearch.bootstrap.Bootstrap.initializeNatives(Bootstrap.java:99) ~[elasticsearch-8.3.3.jar:?]
    at org.elasticsearch.bootstrap.Bootstrap.setup(Bootstrap.java:179) ~[elasticsearch-8.3.3.jar:?]
    at org.elasticsearch.bootstrap.Bootstrap.init(Bootstrap.java:333) ~[elasticsearch-8.3.3.jar:?]
    at org.elasticsearch.bootstrap.Elasticsearch.init(Elasticsearch.java:224) ~[elasticsearch-8.3.3.jar:?]
    ... 1 more